On 2013-10-17 06:42, Anders Logg wrote:
On Wed, Oct 16, 2013 at 08:48:31PM +0100, Garth N. Wells wrote:
On 2013-10-16 20:17, Anders Logg wrote:
>On Wed, Oct 16, 2013 at 01:00:08PM +0100, Chris Richardson wrote:
>>On 16/10/2013 09:25, Garth N. Wells wrote:
>>>Does anyone have an opinion on keeping or removing CGAL from DOLFIN?
>>>Below are some pros and cons:
>>>
>>>- CGAL makes DOLFIN slow to build and builds use a lot of memory.
>>>- CGAL is unpredictable in throwing errors (predictable in that it
>>>will throw cryptic errors, unpredictable when or with which compiler).
>>>- CGAL is difficult to understand and the latest version has very
>>>cryptic interface changes.
>>>- Almost all of the random DOLFIN buildbot failures are due to CGAL
>>>mesh generation failures.
>>>
>>>+ CGAL provides mesh generation for a variety of simple shape
>>>combinations (the DOLFIN interface to CGAL is not rich enough for
>>>anything serious).
>>
>>Agreed. Anyone serious will make their mesh independently, so CGAL
>>is really just an annoying toy in this context... (!)
>
>That may be true, but simple also has a use.
>
>It's an optional dependency, so why is it a big problem?
>
(a) the tests keep failing randomly; (b) it breaks with GCC 4.8; and
(c) updating to CGAL 3.4 is a cryptic mess.
I think
(a) enable the tests only on one buildbot, the one where we know it
fails the least
(b) + (c) try to find a replacement backend mesher (or write our own
mesher) as a long-term solution
The question to ask is what is the purpose of built-in mesh generation?.
I can only think of teaching. Anything else?
Writing our own mesh generation would be a huge waste of time. There are
good mesh generators available (netgen, gmsh, etc).
Garth
--
Anders
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