[Dune-devel] [GSoC2013]

[Luke Bovard]

Markus,

Thank you for your quick response. I certainly agree with you about
programming languages and I only got the book as it had a list of problems
that are relevant to my interests. Most programming books I've seen have
very dry examples that aren't really that important or relevant so having
something that had some mathematical flavour helps.  As I said I really
want to improve my C++ since the industry I want to go into uses C++ almost
exclusively so having a good project to work on well help. Plus this
potential project is right in an area I am interested and have experience
in.

I hope to get some code samples up ASAP but rather unfortunately I am away
this weekend in NYC and have a big final the following Wednesday (in a
course taught by my supervisor so I have to do well). Plus most of April is
exam season at my university so I have mandatory proctoring and marking to
do so I apologise in advance if I don't get stuff up super quickly. I do
hope to have some code to show before the 22nd however. After the 25th all
that mandatory stuff is done and I'm free all summer.

Cheers,

 ~ Luke


On 10 April 2013 02:07, Markus Blatt <markus at dr-blatt.de> wrote:

> Hi Luke,
>
> On Tue, Apr 09, 2013 at 01:34:47AM -0400, Luke Bovard wrote:
> > I saw your organisation on the GSoC list and it has made me very
> excited. I
> > am currently a graduate student (Masters) in applied mathematics doing
> > scientific computation, specifically working on computational fluids.
>
> We are very excited, too. This was our first time applying for GSoc
> and we were not sure whether our scientific background would fit into
> the project.
>
> You background seems to be a perfect fit for our project.
>
> > I am interested in the project on sparse matrices and I'm wondering more
> > about the level of C++ skills required. I don't use C++ in my research,
> we
> > use  C/Fortran/Matlab, and I have no experience in developing code in the
> > language. I have taught myself a little of the basics, i.e. the ideas of
> > classes, objects, and templates and why to use them, but never used them
> in
> > a large project beyond simple little programs written for books (the
> > specific one I have is solving PDEs in C++ from SIAM). I was hoping to
> use
> > GSoC this summer to gain experience in the language on a more serious
> > project because I feel like I learn best working on something serious.
>
> I thinks this pretty much depends on your level of excitement and
> commitment. I am not a fan of language bashing and I think that
> programming experience matters most, not languages in particular. I
> would say that this project requires intermediate skills in C++,
> knowledge about object orientation and templates. Depending on your
> knowledge you should be able to pick them up quickly e.g. by books. I
> do not know the SIAM book you mentioned (apart from scanning through
> the table of contents), but I am not very fond of these kind of
> books. The programming language part is often not very up to date.
> I usually recommend these books to people that already know C++ books
> (Might be outfdated today, but DUNE usually has to be compatible with older
> compilers => C++03):
>
> David Vandervoorde and Nicolai M. Josuttis: C++ Templates: The
> Complete Guide
> Josuttis The C++ Standard Template Library: A Tutorial and Reference
>
> I also have an old script that I might put online.
>
> >
> > Some other relevant background is that I do have experience developing
> > parallel code for HPC although it is limited to just MPI. I do have code
> > (fortran) that has run on the local supercomputing cluster. I also really
> > like numerical linear algebra and just took an advanced topics course on
> > numerical linear algebra that covered multigrid (geometric and
> algebraic),
> > GMRES, CG so I find that stuff cool. I also have a lot of experience
> > solving numerical PDEs and I familiar with the common techniques  (FD,FV,
> > FEM), although in my research we use spectral methods. So if there are
> any
> > other potential ideas that require a greater math background, I am very
> > open to them.
>
> Again, very intriguing.
>
> >
> > So as I said, I want to use this GSoC project to bring my C++ skills up
> to
> > a higher level and hopefully my lack of development experience in C++
> isn't
> > too much of a hindrance.
>
> See above. Please checkout
> http://dune-project.org/gscoc/getstarted.html and be prepare to
> convince us with your own code samples.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Markus
>
> --
> Do you need more support with DUNE or HPC in general?
>
> Dr. Markus Blatt - HPC-Simulation-Software & Services
> http://www.dr-blatt.de
> Hans-Bunte-Str. 8-10, 69123 Heidelberg, Germany
> Tel.: +49 (0) 160 97590858  Fax: +49 (0)322 1108991658
>
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