[mlpack] mlpack 3.2.0 release planning (was: mlpack video meeting, Wednesday Aug. 28th, 1400 UTC)
Ryan Curtin
ryan at ratml.org
Sat Aug 31 20:59:25 EDT 2019
Hey everyone,
Based on the discussions we've had this week, we decided that we would
undo the reverse-incompatible changes and call this release 3.2.0 (and
those changes can be delayed until 4.0.0). So, I went ahead and created
two milestones on Github:
* "mlpack 3.2.0": https://github.com/mlpack/mlpack/milestone/32
This includes issues/PRs that we definitely want to solve or merge
before the release.
* "mlpack 3.2.0 (maybe)": https://github.com/mlpack/mlpack/milestone/33
This includes issues/PRs that *might* be a part of the release, and
if so it would be great, but if not, we don't need to wait on them.
I also opened an issue because Marcus and I have noticed some failing
tests, and we should get those fixed before release:
https://github.com/mlpack/mlpack/issues/1993
If anyone is interested in helping with the release, that might be a
nice place to dive in. I'll do the actual release itself, but this time
I will document every part of it so that if anyone else wants to do it
in the future it should be straightforward.
If you don't see a PR on the release list that should be, or you see one
on the release list that you think shouldn't be, feel free to speak up!
Nothing is set in stone. :)
On Wed, Aug 28, 2019 at 12:21:50PM -0400, Ryan Curtin wrote:
> Hey everyone,
>
> Thanks to those who attended.
>
> Here are the slides that I presented on what has been going on with
> mlpack:
>
> http://www.ratml.org/misc/mlpack-meeting-slides.pdf
>
> Below are my notes for the meeting. It's long, but the notes are pretty
> comprehensive and might involve you, so please, take a look. :)
>
> ====
>
> During the meeting we did some release planning. Rahul pointed out that
> PRs #1931 and #1941 make some reverse-incompatible changes to the
> reinforcement learning API; specifically, the Action structs are changed
> to hold a 'double' instead of a 'double[]'. We are still discussing
> whether this is part of the "public" or "internal" API, and the decision
> will determine whether the release is 4.0.0 or 3.2.0.
>
> We can release the next version quite soon (within a week or two). We
> discussed a number of different PRs to see what we can wait on and what
> we won't:
>
> - Linear SVM CLI and Python bindings
> https://github.com/mlpack/mlpack/pull/1935
>
> * This seems close to approval, but there is still one detail about
> parallel SGD to work out, so it may not be ready in time. I don't
> think we should wait for it, since we can just have another
> release when that is ready.
>
> - Reclaim unused KDE tolerance
> https://github.com/mlpack/mlpack/pull/1984
>
> * This should be merged in the next day or two.
>
> - Julia bindings and Go bindings
> https://github.com/mlpack/mlpack/pull/1949
> https://github.com/mlpack/mlpack/pull/1884
>
> * These seem ready, but finding time to review them is hard, so
> maybe we will not be able to merge them for a little while. I
> don't see a need to wait on these.
>
> - Add getter methods to layers
> https://github.com/mlpack/mlpack/pull/1985
>
> * This may take a little while---no need to wait on it.
>
> - Create the header to determine the layer type
> https://github.com/mlpack/mlpack/pull/1987
>
> * This can probably be merged in the next couple days, so we can
> wait.
>
> - Improve TransposedConvolution layer
> https://github.com/mlpack/mlpack/pull/1493
>
> * This is ready, but needs a review still. Hopefully we can get a
> review done in the next couple days.
>
> Some PRs we are not sure about; will they be ready soon?
>
> if you know about these, do you have any input? I'll send a ping to
> those involved in the next few days if I don't hear anything. :)
>
> - String encoding bindings (appears approved, is it ready to merge?)
> https://github.com/mlpack/mlpack/pull/1980
>
> - MiniBatchDiscrimination layer
> https://github.com/mlpack/mlpack/pull/1913
>
> - Generator update for GANs
> https://github.com/mlpack/mlpack/pull/1933
>
> If there are any other PRs that weren't mentioned in this list that you
> think should be merged before this release, respond to this email and
> point them out---we can get it figured out. :)
>
> ====
>
> We also talked about the different GSoC projects. Most of the summaries
> can be found on the blog; each is linked to in the meeting slides. Lots
> of very cool work happened (and is continuing to happen) this summer!
>
> ====
>
> Then we had some more open discussion about the direction of the
> project, the ways that we communicate, and the ways that we work
> together. Here are some of the comments that were made:
>
> - Suryo pointed out that it would be a great idea to have some
> platforms that can help people connect better. For instance, the
> website is a nice step forward, but perhaps there could be some ways
> that the contributors can open up and talk about other things, like
> forum threads or something like this, where every individual topic
> and idea can be documented. This is not just about mlpack and
> ensmallen, and could be wider scope.
>
> - It could be nice to make some ensmallen stickers. I'll see if I can
> do this in the upcoming weeks.
>
> - Toshal asked about Bandicoot; this is still a work in progress, so
> it's not ready yet, but I'm hopeful that in the upcoming weeks or
> months that the groundwork can be laid in place so that we can see
> mlpack run on GPUs, even in a prototype form.
>
> - Suryo and Rahul discussed combinatorial optimization, which is pretty
> fundamental in CS (see, e.g., the traveling salesman problem).
> ensmallen could be improved to handle these problems. Right now it
> has categorical feature support, and maybe this could be used as a
> start, but in any case there are improvements that could be made and
> additional optimizers that could be added. They will follow up with
> each other through email or IRC to discuss this further.
>
> - Suryo had a great comment about discoverability and documentation.
> When we release mlpack and other parts of the system, it can be
> really helpful to have some blog posts that discuss the improvements
> and how they can be used. Basically, a lot of people are not looking
> for documentation but instead stories and guidance on how they can
> apply the code that we have to their specific problems. So, it would
> be great if we could do more of that, and I agree---how much our code
> gets used depends on how accessible we can make it to the public, and
> blog posts or examples or stories are great ways to do that.
>
> - In addition, Rahul suggested that we assemble a blog post for the
> next release, to highlight all the new features.
>
> I think that all of these are great ideas! But personally, from my end
> I don't have time to execute all of them (or even many of them). So if
> you feel inspired by what you read here, help make it a reality! For
> the next release, I think a blog post would be an awesome idea, but I
> don't have time (or actually knowledge of all the relevant code) to
> write up all of these sections of a blog post. So if you would like to
> write something about your feature or some other features that you know
> got included, it would be awesome, and could help contribute to a nice
> blog post with the release. Send an email or a reply to this or an IRC
> message and let's make it happen!
>
> ====
>
> In the end, we decided that we should do these video meetings more
> often, but just like the above, the key issue is finding the time. :)
> If someone else wants to put together an update presentation or agenda
> or help make them happen, it can make it a lot easier for them to happen
> more often.
>
> Hopefully, we can have another meeting in the next month or two months.
>
> ====
>
> I hope these notes are useful! Please feel free to respond to any of
> the comments here. The meeting itself is just a starting place for
> discussion; it's not final. :)
>
> On Wed, Aug 28, 2019 at 09:09:55AM -0400, Ryan Curtin wrote:
> > Hey everyone,
> >
> > Just a friendly reminder---if you'd like to join today's video meeting,
> > it will be in about an hour, at the Zoom link below. If we have
> > problems, I guess we can try to figure out what to do in IRC. :)
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> > Ryan
> >
> > On Sun, Aug 25, 2019 at 09:20:37PM -0400, Ryan Curtin wrote:
> > > Hello everyone,
> > >
> > > I meant to send this out on Friday but unfortunately got sidetracked!
> > > Anyway, I took a look at the whenisgood and I did the best I could with
> > > everyone's preferred times, and the best is that we could satisfy about
> > > 90% of people when meeting at 1400 UTC on Wednesday, August 28th.
> > >
> > > This time, we can try to use Zoom:
> > >
> > > https://zoom.us/j/553650262
> > >
> > > However, I only have a free Zoom account, so we'll only get 40 minutes
> > > to meet (and then we can just rejoin and continue if needed).
> > >
> > > Here was my idea for a basic agenda, but we don't have to stick to it.
> > > :)
> > >
> > > - How is everyone doing? :) What is everyone up to?
> > >
> > > - mlpack development update
> > > * I'll put together some slides about what's happened since the last
> > > meeting, just like I did last time, and highlight developments and
> > > changes
> > >
> > > - Release planning:
> > > * what should go into the next release
> > > * when should the next release happen
> > > * should it be mlpack 3.2.0, 3.1.2, etc.?
> > > * what are the states of open PRs, and what do we want to do with
> > > them?
> > >
> > > - GSoC update/retrospective:
> > > * we can talk about the status of each project and what we're hoping
> > > for moving forward
> > >
> > > - Open mic topics (just some ideas):
> > > * What should we change (if anything) about how we develop software
> > > as a group?
> > > * Is there anything we could improve? Is everyone having a good
> > > time?
> > > * Are there any big problems that we are overlooking that need to be
> > > addressed, but aren't on Github as issues?
> > > * Are there any big problems that we are overlooking that *are* on
> > > Github as issues?
> > >
> > > Hope to see you there! And if you can't make it, we can send out some
> > > notes of discussion afterwards so that nobody misses anything.
> > >
> > > Thanks!
> > >
> > > Ryan
> > >
> > > --
> > > Ryan Curtin | "I like this game."
> > > ryan at ratml.org | - Coach
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > mlpack mailing list
> > > mlpack at lists.mlpack.org
> > > http://knife.lugatgt.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mlpack
> > >
> >
> > --
> > Ryan Curtin | "Hungry."
> > ryan at ratml.org | - Sphinx
> > _______________________________________________
> > mlpack mailing list
> > mlpack at lists.mlpack.org
> > http://knife.lugatgt.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mlpack
> >
>
> --
> Ryan Curtin |
> ryan at ratml.org | "Death is the road to awe."
> _______________________________________________
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>
--
Ryan Curtin | "Get out of the way!"
ryan at ratml.org | - Train Engineer Assistant
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