[mlpack] GSoC - Introduction and Area of Interest.

[Ryan Curtin]

On Sun, Mar 02, 2014 at 10:39:45AM -0500, Tejas Nikumbh wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 28, 2014 at 3:38 PM, Ryan Curtin <gth671b at mail.gatech.edu>wrote:
> > No, a low difficulty does not mean it is not important.  Conversely, I
> > see implementation of trees as very important (however, my perspective
> > is biased because I do research on trees as my job..
> 
> Cool! Thanks a lot for that. You've piqued my enthusiasm. I'll now be
> working enthusiastically towards formulating a good proposal for this
> project.I plan to do clean code template implementation of KD Tree before
> GSoC to show you my abilities. Would that be good? Or do you have something
> else which could possibly be better/ more relevant?

You could do that, or you could also take a look at ticket #235:

http://www.mlpack.org/trac/ticket/235
https://mailman.cc.gatech.edu/pipermail/mlpack/2014-January/000202.html
(and the associated replies are helpful too; no patch has been
contributed yet)

It isn't required that you submit a patch to mlpack to be considered for
GSoC, but it is definitely helpful and shows us that you are familiar
with the codebase and the code formatting guidelines and workflow.

There are a few other tickets that are open relating to trees; you can
take a look on the bug tracker and see if you find any of them
interesting.

> > The best way to get started is to download and compile mlpack, and go
> > through the tutorials; especially the parts of them that involve the C++
> > interface.  That will help give you an idea of how the code is laid out
> > and the code standards that are used.
> 
> I tried compiling mlpack but there is an error. I have boost 1_55_0
> installed and have included it in the standard path. Also, I have set the
> BOOST_ROOT variable in the CMake options but then too the CMake gives me an
> error like : -
> 
> Unable to find the requested Boost libraries.
> 
>   Boost version: 1.55.0
> 
>   Boost include path: /home/tejas/code/boost_1_55_0
> 
>   The following Boost libraries could not be found:
> 
>           boost_random
> 
>   No Boost libraries were found.  You may need to set BOOST_LIBRARYDIR to
> the
>   directory containing Boost libraries or BOOST_ROOT to the location of
>   Boost.
> 
> Same error with boost_program_options
> and boost_unit_test_framework
> 
> Am I doing something wrong here? Please guide.

Where is libboost_random.so (or a file with a similar name)?  It seems
like CMake is not finding where you have installed the Boost libraries.

> > For the tree project, be sure to take a close look at the code in
> > src/mlpack/core/tree/, because those are the implementations of the
> > binary space tree (which is a generalization of a kd-tree) and the cover
> > tree.  Note the templatization and genericity of the trees.
> 
> Sure, I've started looking into the source. and would produce a skeleton
> sample code based on what I've followed. Do let me know if you have some
> kind of sample in mind that you think could demonstrate my abilities.

It's up to the student to find an adequate way to demonstrate their
abilities.  I am happy to take a look at any code samples that you do
have (or patches) and let you know what I think.  Feel free to join the
mlpack IRC channel if you want to chat in real-time about trees
(assuming both of us are there at the same time...).

Thanks,

Ryan

-- 
Ryan Curtin    | "I love it when a plan comes together."
ryan at ratml.org |   - Hannibal Smith