Re: [boost] Formal review for QVM

Subject: Re: [boost] Formal review for QVM
From: Emil Dotchevski (emildotchevski_at_[hidden])
Date: 2015-12-13 19:38:21

On Sun, Dec 13, 2015 at 3:23 PM, Rajaditya Mukherjee <
rajaditya.mukherjee_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> Oswin Krause wrote:
> >
> >> We encourage your participation in this review. At a minimum, kindly
> >>
> >>> state:
> >>> - Whether you believe the library should be accepted into Boost
> >>>
> >> Not now, but at a later point surely.
> >>
> >>   * Conditions for acceptance
> >>>
> >> This is not because the library is not relevant or useful, or because of
> >> bad design, but because it misses important functionality in the current
> >> state that would give it impact in the current ecosystem. "If I already
> >> have to use two competing point libraries, why should I additionally
> >> introduce qvm?"
> >> The scope must be broadened by including some advanced algorithms which
> >> make qvm useful in the ecosystem, also interoperability with already
> >> existing boost components must be established. Some of its functionality
> >> already exists in boost, which makes acceptance as a standalone library
> a
> >> bit odd. It could be worthwhile to merge qvm with another geometry
> related
> >> boost library to strengthen the links between the libraries.
> >>
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> > Do you vote for conditional acceptance under the condition that in
> > addition to basic operations also more advanced algorithms should be
> > implemented in the future? Or that the library shouldn't be accepted at
> > this point?
> > Emil are you willing to extend the scope of the library?
> >
>
> ​Hi Adam, I believe that since this library specifically targets operations
> in geometric spaces in 2/3/4d, advanced operations are out of the scope for
> this library. It is my understanding (and I may be very wrong here since
> Oswin is a much more senior member of this community than me) that QVM
> supports all the operations that I would currently expect from it - it is
> not a substitute for uBLAS since uBLAS is a complete linear algbera library
> with solvers and advanced matrix functionalities. QVM caters to the
> graphics community with support for operations like swizzling which I often
> use when I am working with GLSL shaders(the client ops.). Just like I use
> glm and eigen in my current projects, I can envision people using QVM and
> uBLAS in a similar fashion with one complementing the other.
>

Rajaditya, I really appreciate this comment, you're absolutely right about
the scope of QVM, this is not a generic linear algebra library, though it
also isn't "yet another 3D graphics math library" either -- its more
appropriate to think of it as a meeting place for the many other such
libraries that exist already, since medium- and large-scale programs tend
to use multiple Q, V and M types coming from several different APIs.

That said, and to reply to Adam's question, I believe that Oswin does have
a point, it may be appropriate to broaden the scope to include
functionality that's used in 3D applications other than graphics.

Emil