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Contributing to Manopt.jl

First, thanks for taking the time to contribute. Any contribution is appreciated and welcome.

The following is a set of guidelines to Manopt.jl.

Table of contents

I just have a question

The developer can most easily be reached in the Julia Slack channel #manifolds. You can apply for the Julia Slack workspace here if you haven't joined yet. You can also ask your question on discourse.julialang.org.

How can I file an issue?

If you found a bug or want to propose a feature, please open an issue in within the GitHub repository.

How can I contribute?

Add a missing method

There is still a lot of methods for within the optimization framework of Manopt.jl, may it be functions, gradients, differentials, proximal maps, step size rules or stopping criteria. If you notice a method missing and can contribute an implementation, please do so, and the maintainers try help with the necessary details. Even providing a single new method is a good contribution.

Provide a new algorithm

A main contribution you can provide is another algorithm that is not yet included in the package. An algorithm is always based on a concrete type of a AbstractManoptProblem storing the main information of the task and a concrete type of an AbstractManoptSolverState storing all information that needs to be known to the solver in general. The actual algorithm is split into an initialization phase, see initialize_solver!, and the implementation of the ith step of the solver itself, see before the iterative procedure, see step_solver!. For these two functions, it would be great if a new algorithm uses functions from the ManifoldsBase.jl interface as generically as possible. For example, if possible use retract!(M,q,p,X) in favor of exp!(M,q,p,X) to perform a step starting in p in direction X (in place of q), since the exponential map might be too expensive to evaluate or might not be available on a certain manifold. See Retractions and inverse retractions for more details. Further, if possible, prefer retract!(M,q,p,X) in favor of retract(M,p,X), since a computation in place of a suitable variable q reduces memory allocations.

Usually, the methods implemented in Manopt.jl also have a high-level interface, that is easier to call, creates the necessary problem and options structure and calls the solver.

The two technical functions initialize_solver! and step_solver! should be documented with technical details, while the high level interface should usually provide a general description and some literature references to the algorithm at hand.

Provide a new example

Example problems are available at ManoptExamples.jl, where also their reproducible Quarto-Markdown files are stored.

Code style

Try to follow the documentation guidelines from the Julia documentation as well as Blue Style. Run JuliaFormatter.jl on the repository in the way set in the .JuliaFormatter.toml file, which enforces a number of conventions consistent with the Blue Style. Furthermore vale is run on both Markdown and code files, affecting documentation and source code comments

Please follow a few internal conventions:

  • It is preferred that the AbstractManoptProblem's struct contains information about the general structure of the problem.
  • Any implemented function should be accompanied by its mathematical formulae if a closed form exists.
  • AbstractManoptProblem and helping functions are stored within the plan/ folder and sorted by properties of the problem and/or solver at hand.
  • the solver state is usually stored with the solver itself
  • Within the source code of one algorithm, following the state, the high level interface should be next, then the initialization, then the step.
  • Otherwise an alphabetical order of functions is preferable.
  • The preceding implies that the mutating variant of a function follows the non-mutating variant.
  • There should be no dangling = signs.
  • Always add a newline between things of different types (struct/method/const).
  • Always add a newline between methods for different functions (including mutating/nonmutating variants).
  • Prefer to have no newline between methods for the same function; when reasonable, merge the documentation strings.
  • All import/using/include should be in the main module file.

Concerning documentation

  • if possible provide both mathematical formulae and literature references using DocumenterCitations.jl and BibTeX where possible
  • Always document all input variables and keyword arguments

If you implement an algorithm with a certain numerical example in mind, it would be great, if this could be added to the ManoptExamples.jl package as well.