[petsc-dev] How long?

[Matthew Knepley]

On Tue, Mar 12, 2019 at 12:43 AM Smith, Barry F. via petsc-dev <
petsc-dev at mcs.anl.gov> wrote:

>
>   It is interesting how difficult rewrites are. It seems simple, do the
> same thing with much more foresight and much better tools, yet, you are
> right, failure often follows.
>

I think one of the big points of incrementalism is conserving the test
suite. People tend to chuck it when doing a complete rewrite.

   Matt


> > On Mar 11, 2019, at 11:37 PM, Jed Brown <jed at jedbrown.org> wrote:
> >
> > Rewrites are super risky and the subject of classic articles.
> >
> >
> https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/
> >
> > (NB: Firefox might not exist today if not for that rewrite.  But they
> > probably would have done better at retaining market share and thus had
> > more money for incremental refactoring had they worked incrementally.)
> >
> > I'm highly skeptical that a rewrite is appropriate for PETSc.  Could a
> > second implementation language be introduced?  Perhaps, with an
> > appropriate plan.
> >
> > "Zhang, Hong via petsc-dev" <petsc-dev at mcs.anl.gov> writes:
> >
> >> Is linux kernel maintainable and extendable? Does anyone want to
> reimplement linux in Julia?
> >>
> >> Hong (Mr.)
> >>
> >>> On Mar 11, 2019, at 9:28 PM, Smith, Barry F. via petsc-dev <
> petsc-dev at mcs.anl.gov> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>  PETSc source code is becoming an unmaintainable, unextendable
> monstrosity. How long until Julia is mature enough that we can
> (re)implement PETSc in it?
> >>>
> >>>  Barry
> >>>
>
>

-- 
What most experimenters take for granted before they begin their
experiments is infinitely more interesting than any results to which their
experiments lead.
-- Norbert Wiener

https://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~knepley/ <http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~knepley/>
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