Re: [eigen] On a flexible API for submatrices, slicing, indexing, masking, etc.

[Yuanchen Zhu <yuanchen.zhu@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Peter,

On Fri, Dec 23, 2016 at 3:04 AM, Peter <list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Dear Yuanchen Zhu,


Am 22.12.2016 um 17:29 schrieb Yuanchen Zhu:

Regarding API naming and convention, I also much prefer a matlab/STL like syntax of normalized(v) instead of v.normalized(), as well as writing cwise_max instead of cwiseMax, so I also have those aliases in my plugin. But I guess
those are for another thread.

The syntax like v.normalized() allows to chain expressions, and speaking for myself,
I find it very convenient to write long one-liner and I rather prefer

W.row(x).segment(0, M-1).normalize()

compared to

  normalize(segment( row( W, x)), 0, M-1))

​I think this example reflects how ugly and noisy the current subblock API is. With a new API,  it can look like

normalized(W(x, span(0, M-1))

which is pretty clean and self explanatory. 

Also, using free-standing function is the standard notation from math and engineering. a.cross(b) just feels unnatural and noisy compared to cross(a, b).   

Finally realistically speaking, I don't think you will be able to meaningfully chain a lot of regular Eigen function calls, EXCEPT when you're using the subblock API, as the those return basically the same type (blocks).

A one liner containing many chained function, while easier to write, can be very confusing for the reader as well.

 

where one would always mess with the number of brackets.

Best regards,
Peter