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by __alexs 871 days ago
The open source solvers are a mess of 30 years of PhD students random contributions. It's amazing they work at all. If you can possibly avoid actually implementing anything using them you will.
1 comments

Can others chime in? To what extent is the above this a fair summary?

I would hope there have been some code reorganizations and maybe even rewrites? Perhaps as the underlying theory advances? Perhaps as the ecosystem of tools borrows from each other?

But I don’t know the state of these solvers. In many ways, the above narrative wouldn’t surprise me. I can be rather harsh (but justifiably so I feel) when evaluating scientific tooling. I worked at one national lab with a “prestigious” reputation that nonetheless seemed to be incapable of blending competent software architecture with its domain area. I’m not saying any ideal solution was reachable; the problem arguably had to do with an overzealous scope combined with budgetary limits and cultural disconnects. Many good people working with a flawed plan seems to me.