On Sun, 31 Jul 2022 at 17:07, Matthew Knepley <knep...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 31, 2022 at 9:06 AM Lisandro Dalcin <dalc...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> On Sun, 31 Jul 2022 at 16:41, Jacob Faibussowitsch <jacob....@gmail.com> >> wrote: >> >>> >>> > Please don't take my words as advocacy for C++ >>> >>> I’m going to pretend like I didn’t read this :) >>> >> >> Whatever the final decision is, PETSc should keep providing a plain C >> API. C is lingua franca, C++ is not. Many other programming languages have >> runtime FFIs mostly based on the C ABI guarantees (Java, Python, MATLAB, >> Rust, Julia, etc). C++ may be great for development, but I do not consider >> it great for crossing language boundaries. >> >> Maybe the right approach for petsc4py is to first get nice and modern >> C++ bindings implemented by wrapping the C interface. And then map these >> C++ bindings to Python. >> > > My crystal ball says that such a C++ binding would eventually be thrown > away just as in the case of MPI. > MPI C++ failed because it provided little added value. But if a PETSc C++ API would become the base of bindings for other OO languages, then there is value in maintaining these C++ bindings. Furthermore, these C++ bindings could serve as the foundation for a reimplementation of PETSc in C++, if that ever happens. And that can be done gradually. PS: Modern C++ is a great language to implement stuff. People using C++ is another story, it is like giving a machine gun to monkeys. Well, at this point, I could say exactly the same about Python. My issue with C++ is not the language itself, but the lack of discipline of C++ developers. There are disastrous stories we all know well. But there are successful ones, like VTK/ParaView. -- Lisandro Dalcin ============ Senior Research Scientist Extreme Computing Research Center (ECRC) King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) http://ecrc.kaust.edu.sa/
