Fantastic! This is going to be great for the Clojure MXNet users as well. On Mon, Oct 29, 2018 at 1:39 PM YiZhi Liu <liuyi...@apache.org> wrote:
> Hi, > > > > I am happy to announce that the availability of the experimental > nightly-build Scala package on Maven in Nexus. The nightly-builds, > currently published as 1.3.1-SNAPSHOT version, include the latest changes > from the master branch from apache/incubator-mxnet GitHub repo and refresh > every day. Furthermore, we completely overhauled the MXNet library shipped > inside and adopted the binary build logic used for Python pip, so now Scala > users can also enjoy the portable MXNet with fully loaded features. > Currently, the supported artifacts are: > > - mxnet-full_2.11-linux-x86_64-cpu (Linux-CPU) > > - mxnet-full_2.11-linux-x86_64-gpu (Linux-GPU, CUDA 9.0) > > - mxnet-full_2.11-osx-x86_64-cpu (OSX-CPU) > > > > FAQ: > > - What's new in the nightly Scala packages compared to the previous Scala > Maven artifacts? > > Most notably, better usability, more supported features, and better > platform compatibility. The new packages now support Ubuntu 14.04 and > Amazon Linux and support the same broad set of features as the existing pip > packages. Besides, users are no longer required to install all the > dependencies to use the nightly Scala packages as the included MXNet > libraries are fully loaded. For the list of supported platforms and > features, see [1]. > > > > - What's different in the build approach compared to what's in the previous > Scala Maven packages? > > The previous Scala Maven packages (1.2, 1.2.1, 1.3) were built with the > same build commands that regular users would use when building from source > [2]. This naive approach limits the compatibility to only similar > environments as where the packages were built (which was Ubuntu 16.04 for > Linux, and OSX 10.13 for OSX). As a result, users cannot use it on more > CentOS or Amazon Linux and may suffer the problem of mismatching of > dependency versions due to the difference in their environment. > > On the other hand, Python users have long been enjoying portable and fully > loaded MXNet packages from pip. The MXNet libraries in pip packages are > built in more controlled environments with compatibility in mind. > Dependencies for extended features are statically linked and masked so that > no additional steps are needed. > > Now, in the new Scala nightly packages, the same approach as pip is used > for building the MXNet library so that the Scala users can benefit from the > same great features. > > > > - How do I get the new nightly packages? > > You can find the packages on Apache (Snapshots) repository [3] including > pom files and jars, which you can download and add to your projects. > Alternatively, you can configure your pom.xml to use the Maven repository. > Remember to add repository config: > > <repositories> > > <repository> > > <id>Apache Snapshot</id> > > <url>https://repository.apache.org/content/groups/snapshots</url> > > </repository> > > </repositories> > > > > - What's the support level of the Scala nightly packages? > > This package is currently experimental, so use at your own risk. While the > first nightly packages are already manually verified on several platforms, > and the automated publish pipeline runs unit tests and integration tests on > OSX and Ubuntu 14.04 before publishing, the testing is currently limited. > > > > - How can I help? > > We call on all MXNet Scala community to test out the new nightly packages. > > > > - I found a problem in using the package. What should I do? > > Please report this in the Github issue in [1]. > > > > - What's next? > > There are several more things to be done: > > 1. We are adding more comprehensive support for GPU versions for different > CUDA versions. > > 2. We are adding more tests on more platforms. We are currently examining > the MXNet's Jenkins CI solution for supporting more platforms. > > 3. As we recognize that the build logic benefits the community, we plan to > open source the build scripts in the mxnet main repo. See progress at [5]. > > > > Qing Lan, Zach Kimberg, Sheng Zha, and I worked together to make this > happen. Thanks to Sheng Zha for sharing the pip build logic, and for > building the automated publishing pipelines. Special thanks to Qing and > Zach for sharing their expertise in Scala with Sheng and guiding and > supporting him locally for this milestone. > > > > [1] https://github.com/apache/incubator-mxnet/issues/8671 > > [2] > > https://github.com/apache/incubator-mxnet/blob/master/scala-package/dev/compile-mxnet-backend.sh#L59-L105 > > [3] > > https://repository.apache.org/#nexus-search;gav~org.apache.mxnet~~1.3.1-SNAPSHOT~~ > > [4] https://maven.apache.org/repository-management.html > > [5] https://github.com/apache/incubator-mxnet/projects/13 >
