[mlpack] Ideas for Google Summer of Code 2015

[Ryan Curtin]

On Thu, Feb 12, 2015 at 12:55:46AM +0530, SAHEB MOTIANI wrote:
> Hi Ryan,
> 
> I just wanted to propose a new idea. Not completely new, but on the lines
> of bindings.
> 
> *JS bindings for mlpack / Porting mlpack to Web*
> 
> Javascript is one of the widely used languages and it even runs on the
> server side now, so it would be great to have it run on the web as well as
> node console. Mozilla developed framework called Emscripten is widely used
> for doing such projects.
> 
> I did myself worked for such an idea for OGDF(Open Graph Drawing Framework)
> in my GSOC 2013 (http://ogdf.net/doku.php/gsoc2013#porting_ogdf_to_the_web).
> OGDF is a graph drawing C++ library making use of templates.
> 
> Python and R bindings were proposed for OGDF even but having bindings for
> JS/ Web /Node.js is an equally cool option to have.
> 
> I would like to know your and our community views for the same.
> 
> I would be happy to be a mentor for this idea, or Automatic Bindings Idea.

I think the automatic bindings are a far better step for this.  Any
bindings we've had in the past (MATLAB and R) have become out of date
very quickly as the interface to the command-line programs change, and
end up unmaintained, non-functional code.

Personally I think that automatic bindings are the single most important
project we could have this summer; so, hopefully, I can find a good
student.  If not, I'll probably end up attempting to find some time to
implement the automatic binding system myself, and if that works out,
then we can figure out how to give it a Javascript interface.

-- 
Ryan Curtin    | "Moo."
ryan at ratml.org |   - Eugene Belford