On 6/9/15 1:50 AM, John Colvin wrote:
On Tuesday, 9 June 2015 at 06:59:07 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
(a) Provide standard data layouts in std.array for the typical shapes
supported by linear algebra libs: row major, column major, alongside
with striding primitives.
I don't think this is quite the right approach. Multidimensional arrays
and matrices are about accessing and iteration over data, not data
structures themselves. The standard layouts are common special cases.
I see. So what would be the primitives necessary? Strides (in the form
of e.g. special ranges)? What are the things that would make a library
vendor or user go, "OK, now I know what steps to take to use my code
with D"?
(b) Provide signatures for C and Fortran libraries so people who have
them can use them easily with D.
(c) Provide high-level wrappers on top of those functions.
Andrei
That is how e.g. numpy works and it's OK, but D can do better.
Ilya, I'm very interested in discussing this further with you. I have a
reasonable idea and implementation of how I would want the generic
n-dimensional types in D to work, but you seem to have more experience
with BLAS and LAPACK than me* and of course interfacing with them is
critical.
*I rarely interact with them directly.
Color me interested. This is another of those domains that hold great
promise for D, but sadly a strong champion has been missing. Or two :o).
Andrei
