juliadiff / juliadiff.github.io Goto Github PK

Currently neither the LaTeX equations nor the status symbols render correctly: https://www.juliadiff.org/

We'll soon have enough packages sharing code that it makes sense to re-examine how we're organizing JuliaDiff. I have two proposals which I won't have time to work on for at least a month, but I'll write them up now to allow time for discussion.

cc @mlubin @johnmyleswhite @KristofferC @dpsanders

1. DiffBase.jl

This package could define a common differentiation interface for other packages to implement, but probably not overload (since it could result in ambiguities/conflicts between packages). The interface should still allow other packages to use implementation-specific optional/keyword arguments.

It could also implement DiffResult types - essentially the ForwardDiffResult types currently in ForwardDiff.jl, perhaps with some tweaks.

Finally, this package could contain an automated test and benchmark suite of various differentiable functions written against the API DIffBase provides.

2. Replace DualNumbers.Dual with ForwardDiff.Dual

I'd like to decouple ForwardDiff's dual number implementation from the rest of ForwardDiff, since the multidimensional dual numbers are useful as a standalone tool (e.g. for my upcoming reverse-mode package). Last time I checked, ForwardDiff.Dual provides all the functionality (and more) of DualNumbers.Dual without any performance loss. Would anybody be opposed to a straight replacement of the implementation in DualNumbers.jl?

AFAIK, ForwardDiff.Dual also constitutes a more general hyper-dual number implementation than HyperDualNumbers.Hyper, but I'm not sure of the performance difference.

since folks are updating the webpage, would be nice to add.

Forward mode:

• ForwardDiff
• ForwardDiff2

Reverse Mode:

• Nabla
• Tracker
• Yota
• Zygote
• ReverseDiff
• AutoGrad.jl
• NiLang (arguably not reverse mode)

Symbolic:

• ModelingToolKit
• XGrad.jl

Finite Differencing:

• Calculus (please stop)
• FiniteDifferences
• FiniteDiff

Rulesets:

• ChainRules
• DiffRules (soon to stop)

Sparsity Detection

• SparseDiffTools

The list of packages on https://juliadiff.org/ is pretty outdated, and the ones on top are not necessarily the most widely used or actively maintained.

@oxinabox @ChrisRackauckas I can do a PR to reorder / delete names but I'd need help to figure things out. What do you suggest looking at? GitHub activity? Package stats?

It seems better to add the following packages to the docs.

• ForwardDiffChainRules.jl
• FastForwardDiff.jl