fenics team mailing list archive

[Anders Logg <logg@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Sep 26, 2005 at 11:11:17AM -0500, Matthew Knepley wrote:
> "Robert C. Kirby" <kirby@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> > 3.) My final point is the time factor -- a "standard" is something
> > that everybody uses because everybody has been using it and has
> > time, energy, code-base, and know-how invested in it (FORTRAN is
> > an example of something that is a standard in multiple senses).
> > Inertia prevents scientists from scrapping existing
> > scientific/engineering code in favor of better ones -- the present
> > code runs and gets results.  Today, we are seeing people willing
> > to take a leap with PDE codes and jump into these new-fangled
> > automated things.  However, if we wait some n years to start
> > selling FEniCS components or an integrated FEniCS system, then we
> > have to overcome the inertia of people having already invested in
> > other systems (e.g. FreeFEM, Deal) and being hesitant to change.
> > The sell becomes not "you should use an automated system" but "you
> > should scrap your current automated system in favor of mine".  I
> > claim the latter will be a harder sell -- the technical merit of a
> > system matters more when people are confronted with two new
> > products (I don't have a car, I think I'll buy one -- what's the
> > best one out there that I can afford?) and told to choose one than
> > it does when they have a working product are asked to scrap it for
> > the latest/greatest (I have a Ford, do I really need to upgrade to
> > a Volvo?  Sure, it may be great, but I can get where I'm going
> > just fine without spending any more money or time looking for a
> > new car)
> >
> > The thing I'm trying to avoid here is irrelevance to the broader
> > world of scientific computing.  Even if we have the best system in
> > the world but we can't sell it to plasma physicists or geologists
> > or whoever, we have not set a new standard in computational
> > mathematical modeling.  If our would-be clients are already
> > committed to other projects, we have not set a new standard in
> > computational mathematical modeling.  If we develop a system that
> > is not as good as others, we have not set a new standard in
> > computational mathematical modeling.
> 
>   Neat discussion, and in my opinion long overdue in scientific
> computing which tends to focus on easy metrics (flops, peak) with no
> clear connection to reality, as well as funding sources. I want to
> mention that we should not think that all components are always used
> the same way, or even that we can think of all the ways consumers
> will use them. That is what innovation is about.
> 
>   For instance, FIAT can be used standalone to generate quadrature
> tables for an element, which are then compiled in. Even here it is a
> vast improvement over stuff worked out by hand or copied from
> tables. However, it an also be used at runtime to define static
> structures, or as part of a code generation system. But FFC goes
> farther, and uses FIAT to exactly integrate an arbitrary form. This
> probably does not exhaust the uses, but shows that one component may
> be used lots of different ways.  The metrics I like for FEniCS
> components (squishy as they may be) are conceptual fertility and
> ease of use.
> 
>   Lastly, standards are great. But in my opinion, all standards are
> just a community admitting that someone has done a good job. That is
> why standards efforts which do not embody advances made by actual
> simulation (ESI, CCA) never work. The best way to integrate FEniCS
> into the community is to work with application groups directly.
> 
>      Matt

My point on this is that it is easier to create new standards with
small, flexible components with limited scope. (Which does not mean we
can't bundle things and distribute as a whole.) FIAT is one good
example of this.

Maybe (probably) we won't be able create one big system that everyone
uses, but some of the components we develop in the process may well
become standard and it's difficult to say at first which components
will gain acceptance.

/Anders