Discussion for creating ArrayFire Rust API

[pavanky]

Rust has hit 1.0. It would be interesting to see if we can add a wrapper to Rust.

[jramapuram]

Since arrayfire has a C API it should be possible to use FFI (https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/ffi.html) to pull in these functions. If so, then it should merely be writing up the new interface definitions. Thoughts?

[umar456]

It would take a good bit of effort to create a native experience with the rust language. If you look at the src/api/cpp directory, the C++ interface is made of 3933 lines of pretty dense code. I come from a C++ background so I am comfortable with our C++ API but it might be different for a idiomatic Rust interface.

Rust looks like a fantastic language and I would love to see some progress in this project but I need to do more research on the language to feel comfortable contributing. Perhaps someone who is familiar with the Rust language can create a mockup program similar to the ones located in the getting_started folder in idiomatic Rust. We can then start integrating these features into this repository.

[jramapuram]

I can write up some examples. I'm a c++11/c99 person myself, and it feels weird at first, but there are good reasons for the idioms in rust.

[jramapuram]

Also, if you guys are able to do the c refactor as mentioned in the other issue it will be the first easy integration with the GPU via RUST! There have been some tries I believe: http://blog.theincredibleholk.org/blog/2012/12/05/compiling-rust-for-gpus/ but that is more so to get rust natively on there which I don't think is really necessary.

[pavanky]

Closing this issue as it looks like we are making good progress in this regard.