8 ms·

User-friendly language for programming efficient simulations

88 points by muhic 10y ago

faizshah 10y ago
Much more info on their site/github: http://simit-lang.org/language http://simit-lang.org/language Also, the paper is available here: http://simit-lang.org/tog16 http://simit-lang.org/tog16
pasbesoin 10y ago
Server housing publication PDF's appears to have problems, at the moment. Archived copies: http://wayback.archive.org/web/20160828234821/http://groups.csail.mit.edu/commit/papers/2016/simit.pdf http://wayback.archive.org/web/20160828234821/http://groups.... http://wayback.archive.org/web/20160828234958/http://groups.csail.mit.edu/commit/papers/2016/why.pdf http://wayback.archive.org/web/20160828234958/http://groups....
santaclaus 10y ago
Also coming out this year with the same goal is Ebb from Stanford: http://ebblang.org http://ebblang.org Both languages look cool, but seem fairly limited at the moment -- they are basically DSLs for assembling and solving PSD systems.
- bmer 10y ago
  What does PSD stand for?
  - wfunction 10y ago
    Positive semi-definite, I believe.
hclgckxjtxjfxur 10y ago
It seems like it would be much more straightforward to write a graph-based FEM library for MATLAB than to make an entirely new language around a feature with a very specific and very narrow use case. Still, the high performance aspects of simit seem interesting, assuming that they weren't too badly cherrypicked.
- santaclaus 10y ago
  Yea, I'm not really sure what a new language buys them here. It seems they could have just released a library (not even tied to Matlab) with their highly tuned stiffness matrix assembly routines and their kernels...
  - evouga 10y ago
    If you only want the existing kernels, this makes sense. And in the long term it would be useful to have a library of common kernels for assembling FEM stiffness and mass matrices for various kinds of commonly-used elements, etc. Compare to GSLS; the shading language is unnecessary if you only want to use a handful of pre-made shaders, but usually that is not case.
- fredrikbk 10y ago
  We needed new language constructs (the matrix assembly) and a new type system for matrices that ties back to the graph to make it simple and fast. It is also not limited to FEM codes. It can be used to write any application that computes on sparse systems using linear algebra. Some application areas are optimization, machine learning, data analytics, fluid dynamics, image processing, and robotics. For more information about the language, why it is designed the way it is, why it is fast, and what applications it can be used for, see the talk I gave at Microsoft Research last Friday: https://youtu.be/raPkxhHy5ro?t=40m32s https://youtu.be/raPkxhHy5ro?t=40m32s
  - bmer 10y ago
    This is really cool! You have coded up some timesteppers in Simit already; any plans to release them as a standard package which would be officially optimized, or do you mostly expect users to just roll their own as needed?
    - fredrikbk 10y ago
      Thanks! Yes, we have an `apps` directory in the source tree that we will add programs to. These programs are tested by our test suites, and will later be our performance regressions. I'm actually working with some people at Adobe this summer to add Local-Global Solvers for ARAP energies (an optimization code) to the set of applications we provide there. We also have an implementation of PageRank.
sanxiyn 10y ago
It is worth noting that Simit shares an author with Halide: http://halide-lang.org/ http://halide-lang.org/ I'd say Halide was definitely a success of domain specific high performance language, so hopefully Simit is too.
- fredrikbk 10y ago
  It actually shares two authors (Jon and Saman). Their work on Halide was amazing!
  - iamcreasy 10y ago
    Could you please explain what's so special about Halide?
lowestwhisper 10y ago
A presentation of this work is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raPkxhHy5ro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raPkxhHy5ro
crustygirl 10y ago
Would one be able to write efficient solvers for semidefinite programming using Simit?

88 points by muhic 10y ago

Much more info on their site/github: http://simit-lang.org/language http://simit-lang.org/language Also, the paper is available here: http://simit-lang.org/tog16 http://simit-lang.org/tog16

pasbesoin 10y ago

Server housing publication PDF's appears to have problems, at the moment. Archived copies: http://wayback.archive.org/web/20160828234821/http://groups.csail.mit.edu/commit/papers/2016/simit.pdf http://wayback.archive.org/web/20160828234821/http://groups.... http://wayback.archive.org/web/20160828234958/http://groups.csail.mit.edu/commit/papers/2016/why.pdf http://wayback.archive.org/web/20160828234958/http://groups....

santaclaus 10y ago

Also coming out this year with the same goal is Ebb from Stanford: http://ebblang.org http://ebblang.org Both languages look cool, but seem fairly limited at the moment -- they are basically DSLs for assembling and solving PSD systems.

bmer 10y ago
What does PSD stand for?
- wfunction 10y ago
  Positive semi-definite, I believe.

hclgckxjtxjfxur 10y ago

It seems like it would be much more straightforward to write a graph-based FEM library for MATLAB than to make an entirely new language around a feature with a very specific and very narrow use case. Still, the high performance aspects of simit seem interesting, assuming that they weren't too badly cherrypicked.

santaclaus 10y ago
Yea, I'm not really sure what a new language buys them here. It seems they could have just released a library (not even tied to Matlab) with their highly tuned stiffness matrix assembly routines and their kernels...
- evouga 10y ago
  If you only want the existing kernels, this makes sense. And in the long term it would be useful to have a library of common kernels for assembling FEM stiffness and mass matrices for various kinds of commonly-used elements, etc. Compare to GSLS; the shading language is unnecessary if you only want to use a handful of pre-made shaders, but usually that is not case.
fredrikbk 10y ago
We needed new language constructs (the matrix assembly) and a new type system for matrices that ties back to the graph to make it simple and fast. It is also not limited to FEM codes. It can be used to write any application that computes on sparse systems using linear algebra. Some application areas are optimization, machine learning, data analytics, fluid dynamics, image processing, and robotics. For more information about the language, why it is designed the way it is, why it is fast, and what applications it can be used for, see the talk I gave at Microsoft Research last Friday: https://youtu.be/raPkxhHy5ro?t=40m32s https://youtu.be/raPkxhHy5ro?t=40m32s
- bmer 10y ago
  This is really cool! You have coded up some timesteppers in Simit already; any plans to release them as a standard package which would be officially optimized, or do you mostly expect users to just roll their own as needed?
  - fredrikbk 10y ago
    Thanks! Yes, we have an `apps` directory in the source tree that we will add programs to. These programs are tested by our test suites, and will later be our performance regressions. I'm actually working with some people at Adobe this summer to add Local-Global Solvers for ARAP energies (an optimization code) to the set of applications we provide there. We also have an implementation of PageRank.

sanxiyn 10y ago

It is worth noting that Simit shares an author with Halide: http://halide-lang.org/ http://halide-lang.org/ I'd say Halide was definitely a success of domain specific high performance language, so hopefully Simit is too.

fredrikbk 10y ago
It actually shares two authors (Jon and Saman). Their work on Halide was amazing!
- iamcreasy 10y ago
  Could you please explain what's so special about Halide?

lowestwhisper 10y ago

A presentation of this work is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raPkxhHy5ro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raPkxhHy5ro

crustygirl 10y ago

Would one be able to write efficient solvers for semidefinite programming using Simit?