Mersenne: Modularising Prime95/mprime - a path to broader development.

[Gareth Randall]

Dear All,

I'd like to suggest that prime95/mprime be "modularised", and that only the core calculation component be kept closed source. I realise that the code for generating verification codes must remain restricted, because that is the only authentication that work has really been done and done correctly.

However, I do not see any reason why any of the building blocks other than the core calculation component actually need to be restricted. I also see many benefits of them being made open to contribution.


The following units could be made into separate modules, be they executables, scripts or linked libraries:

1. Work selection algorithm
2. Results logging and reporting
3. GIMPS server communications
4. Graphical progress animations
5. User account management
6. Numeric computation module (the actual factoring and LL part)
7. Overall control module


Each of these would have ways of communicating with the others, such as pipes, IPC or files, but these could of course be freely customised where desired. The computation module would be simplified, and be told exactly what work to do.


The key benefits are:

1. Removal of many bottlenecks caused by the understandibly limited time of core developers.

2. Substantially easier bug-fixing. (What's error 2250 again? Quick search of the source for the server comms module. Oh yes, that means...)

3. Vastly increased potential for user participation and development.



Prime95/mprime could be regenerated as a collection of programs, such as:

On Windows: One executable and multiple DLLs
or: Multiple executables, and one calculation component in Win32 command-line mode.
On UNIX: Separate binaries and scripts. One script to start the collection running.



Wouldn't it be great if from some point in the near future, "feature request" posts to this newsgroup became more like "I've written a fancy improved frontend to GIMPS with some cool graphics, see this link for more info", rather than "It would be nice if you could incorporate a better frontend with some cool graphics." :-)

Further, the ability for users to run their own personalised frontends might give GIMPS the tangible advantage over other distributed projects that many readers would so like to find.


Yours,
--
======= Gareth Randall =======

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