Can the namespace issue be fixed with some macro magic? #ifdef UNIQUE_PETSC_NAMESPACE #define Mat PetscMat #endif ... ... #undef Mat This seems like it would satisfy both parties, and a compiler/build flag could uniqueify the namespace if needed. ~A On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 11:23 AM, Matthew Knepley <[email protected]> wrote:

On Sun, Mar 16, 2008 at 7:38 PM, Barry Smith <[email protected]> wrote:

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There are two significant changes I'd like to see before the next PETSc release:

1) remove the overly complicated (from a user perspective) matrix subclassing for the various external matrix solver packages and replace with MatSolverSetType() - mat_solver_type <type> that simply flips the various factorization/solver functions with those requested and

This seems not too hard. Just a layer on top to run the code a user must run now.

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2) properly name-space PETSc by putting a Petsc in front of all PETSc objects, function names etc (this will require changing a few names also to keep them below the 32 character limit). This will be very painful change for some users who are not comfortable ever changing code, hence I hesitate to do it, but it is the right thing to do and should have been done originally.

I guess I still do not see the need for this. NIMROD is a not a sufficient driver in my mind. If we really want namespaces, use a real language that has namespaces. There are plenty. If we are still using C, I say we stick with the old division. The imposition of this much pain on the overwhelming majority of users seems unjustified.

Namespaces issues can be trivially fixed in say C++, which we should do.

Matt

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Maybe we can do a release in around a couple of months, it would be 2.4

Barry

-- What most experimenters take for granted before they begin their experiments is infinitely more interesting than any results to which their experiments lead. -- Norbert Wiener