Google Summer of Code: Update

[John Woods]

Hi all,

Good news! Carlos Agarie has agreed to be the project admin this year for SciRuby. Thanks, Carlos!

Unfortunately, we still haven't had many updates to the GSoC ideas page! We must have mentors in order for the project to succeed. Please go sign up to be a mentor, and add something you're interested in.

https://github.com/SciRuby/sciruby/wiki/Google-Summer-of-Code-2015-Ideas

Cheers,

John

[Carlos Agarie]

Hi,

I think we should focus on NMatrix this year -- the dependency on ATLAS/CBLAS/CLAPACK is problematic for "casual" use and, as such, the project responsible for abstracting these to another gem is very, very important. I won't take a direct mentoring position this year to make sure I will be able to accomplish what is expected from a project admin, but I can help with this specific project.

We could create a gem to interface NMatrix with OpenBLAS instead of ATLAS as well. It is easier to install (`brew install openblas` or `apt-get install openblas`) and should be enough for small to medium problems. 

By the way, in about three weeks I'll start a new job as a "data scientist" and the company gave me freedom over choosing the technology stack for data analysis. The internal dashboards and reporting will be built using Rails + D3, but I really want to use this as an opportunity to stress-test NMatrix and the other SciRuby components. :)

​Please folks, sign up to be a mentor if you can: 2015 Ideas page.

​

-----

Carlos Agarie

Software Engineer

+55 11 97320-3878 | @carlos_agarie

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[Andrew C Smith]

That’s great. I’m back in grad school, so am thinking about applying for the GSL integration, as well as extracting ATLAS and adding Accelerate (Apple) bindings, since that’s where my numerical experience lives (i.e., using algorithms written by people smarter than me).

Anyway, I see that GSoC applications are due March 27. Is there a different deadline where SciRuby needs them earlier, or is it all the same? I’ve got some LAPACK / Accelerate code on my own machine that I could clean up and submit a pull request for in advance of the deadline, to make things a little stronger.

Andrew

[John Woods]

SciRuby has to meet the Feb 20th deadline. I'll be working on the app this weekend, will try to get it finalized.

Andrew, I think adding Accelerate bindings would be *awesome*. I would love to see this as a project proposal.

Carlos, I agree — with the caveat that we need to split our focus with visualization tools. It's so hard to use Ruby right now for science because it's a pain in the **** getting anything plotted.

[Andrew C Smith]

Okay, great. I’ll get that proposal together ASAP then. It’ll be fun. If this gets rolling using Apple’s native LAPACK implementation, that should really help adoption and wider use. As fun as installing LAPACK on my MPB was, it’s not the kind of fun I would wish on a casual user.