[petsc-dev] Discussion about time-dependent optimization moved from PR

[Jed Brown]

Barry Smith <bsmith at mcs.anl.gov> writes:

>> On Oct 17, 2017, at 9:47 AM, Jed Brown <jed at jedbrown.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Lawrence Mitchell <wencel at gmail.com> writes:
>> 
>> 
>> When I suggested as a young child that DM be essentially just a function
>> space and create a new object for resolution-independent specification
>> of a problem (residual and Jacobian functions and related components),
>> Barry wanted it to be part of DM to avoid having a new object.  So it's
>> part of DM -- make a new DM if you're solving a different problem.
>
>   Of course, everything in PETSc is subject to refactorization and it
>   may be time to do this refactorization; especially if it can
>   dramatically decrease the ugly subtle complexities of the TSDM,
>   SNESDM .... management. One more public object per solver level is
>   probably better than the complexity we have now I do admit.

I'm not opposed to refactoring (though it would take me significant time
without distractions), but this sort of change would have a lot more
consequences now because we have lots of code depending on it.  Is there
a functional reason to refactor now?