[mlpack] GSoC 2018: Particle Swarm Optimization

[Chintan Soni]

Hello Marcus,

> There is already an open PR for the standard PSO
> https://github.com/mlpack/mlpack/pull/1225 that should be helpful.

I'll check it out thoroughly today. I went over it briefly and noticed
it involves the gbest PSO; maybe I can start with lbest PSO then?

> Agreed, that is definitely an option we can adapt for the PSO method.

Glad to know that, I'll also look into the idea of using lambdas, and
see if I can come up with a comparison between the two.

> Agreed, another FunctionType is a good idea to represent multiple functions, one
> idea is to use variadic templates to pass multiple functions, that would allow
> us to use the same interface.-

Yes, variadic templates seem like the right option for now.

> Right, the codebase does use a lot of memory in the build step, one idea is to
> turn off the python bindings and the executables:
>
> cmake  -DBUILD_CLI_EXECUTABLES=OFF -DBUILD_PYTHON_BINDINGS=OFF ..
>
> you can also check if adding -DDEBUG=ON helps. Also, maybe there is an option to
> increase/add Swap?

I'll turn off the python bindings and executables and try building
once again. I have been using the DEBUG flag already, so I'll look
into adding swap area next.

Thanks for all the help. I'll begin drafting a proposal in a day or
two. Is there a specific format for the proposal? I went through the
Application Guide; there was no mention of a format, just guidelines
and required content in the proposal. Will a simple Google Doc do?

Thanks and regards,
Chintan