CS107/AC207 Project

Project Overview

Goal

You will develop a software library for a client (the teaching staff). The development of this library will leverage modern software development practices covered in the course. By the end of the semester, the client should be able to easily install and run your package.

Topic

The project topic is automatic differentiation (AD). AD is a very broad area spanning computer science and mathematics with applications in fields across science and engineering. We will only briefly graze the surface of this fascinating technique; indeed, AD is broad enough that it could form an entire course in its own right. Even so, your final project is to write a python automatic differentiation library. Your library is not required to contain all aspects of AD; that would simply be too much for a single semester. However, your library should meet the basic project expectations outlined in the following sections.

Project Milestones

The following weight table is used for individual milestones of the project. The individual milestones make up the final project grade listed under the Grading section in the syllabus. The due date for the final milestone is December 10th 2022, 11:59 PM.

Milestone	Due	Total Points
Milestone 1A	Thu, September 22nd, 11:59 PM	2
Milestone 1B	Tue, October 4th, 11:59 PM	3
Milestone 1	Thu, October 20th, 11:59 PM	15
Milestone 2A	Tue, November 1st, 11:59 PM	2
Milestone 2B	Thu, November 10th, 11:59 PM	2
Milestone 2	Thu Tue, November 17th 22nd, 11:59 PM	30
Final Milestone	Sat, December 10th, 11:59 PM	104
Total		158

Groups

You will work in groups of 4-5 students. You are free to choose your project partners but groups sizes must consist of the number of students mentioned before. Some members of the group will be stronger than others. It is expected that you work together and help each other as needed. This is an opportunity for less experienced coders to improve their skills by working with more experienced coders. Every person must contribute.

Expectations

This project has a few non-negotiable expectations, which are outlined in basic expectations. The project also has a more open-ended component, which is described in additional expectations.

Basic Expectations

• Python library that can be used for automatic differentiation with a working forward mode implementation.
• The client should be able to easily install the library, run the tests, access the documentation, and use the library for their application.
• Documentation for every subsystem in the project must be provided.
• Link to the docs from the README.md in each folder.
• The top level README.md should contain an overview, links to other docs, and an installation guide which will help us install and test your system.
• The project must utilize a proper packaging system for distribution and installation of the library.
• The project must ship with a test suite. Documentation on how to run the tests is mandatory.

Additional Expectations

AD is extremely versatile. It finds applications in optimization, machine learning, and numerical methods (e.g. time integration, root-finding). There are also many different ways of implementing an AD package. In addition to the basic requirements of writing a forward mode AD library, you must also extend your package in some way. There are many options here and the teaching staff will have to approve your proposed extension. Here are a few general ideas (you will need to specialize them):

• Implement reverse mode
• Implement a mixed mode
• Implement back propagation
• Write an application that uses your AD library
  • Implicit time-integrator
  • Optimization
  • Root-finder
• Option for higher-order derivatives (Hessians and beyond)

Note: If you elect to write an application that uses your AD library, then you must speak to the teaching staff first. There are certain instances where it might make sense to package your application together with your AD library (e.g. pytorch). However, it may be a better idea to keep the two libraries separate. In such a case, the teaching staff will need to approve your proposed extension and assess its efficacy.

You are more than welcome to pitch your own idea.

Broader Impact

You must write a broader impact statement for your library. The broader impact should consider the accessibility of your software library to different groups of people. This statement should be around 250 words (approximately 1/2 page). It can be placed in the README.md of your library. Things to consider when writing this statement are:

1. How will you make your library accessible to different groups?
2. What process will contributions to your library need to go through?
3. How will you ensure that this process is fair and welcoming to all groups?