Original Dev Thread https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/aecfae9381286c8864f0b0a63211f2ac498eafb1ffb6fcdd863e67a6@%3Cdev.mxnet.apache.org%3E
Background & Motivation
Currently the Scala package supports the Module and the Feed Forward API. The Clojure package builds on the Scala package and supports the Module API. The Gluon API is only supported so far in the Python package, however it is more full featured and all of the newer documentation and books and online resources like Dive into Deep Learning use the Gluon API. Supporting this API would allow the JVM packages to grow and to eventually share a common API for documentation and tutorials.
Challenges
- Keeping the MXNet JVM packages coordinated, so there is a minimum of code duplication and no divergence in the jni bindings which would complicate deployment. However allow interested contributors to pick up areas of development that interest them independently.
- The Gluon API is large so finding a good area to tackle.
- The Current Scala native bindings might not be sufficient to support the Gluon API.
- How to build out pieces one by one instead of all at once.
- Some syntax will be different in different langs.
Proposal
- Have guidelines about developing Gluon API for JVM langs.
- Any new JNI binding development needs to go into the Scala package first to avoid divergence and packing issues in other packages.
- If a contributor wants to add a package to the Clojure package first (for example https://mxnet.incubator.apache.org/api/python/gluon/model_zoo.html) that doesn't touch the JNI bindings, that development can happen in Clojure first and then when it arrives in the Scala package can be converted over if desired to have a single implementation. This will allow some decoupling of development.
- The API should follow as closely as possible to the Gluon API and live under the same namespace.
- Example: The model zoo API in the Clojure package would be org.apache.clojure-mxnet.gluon.model-zoo
- Use the existing module code when possible to build out the Gluon API.
- If implementing gluon.model.zoo or gluon.data before core functionality, have it work with existing module code.
TODO: Gluon API Analysis
| Gluon package | Description | Comments | Can be supported with current JNI? | Covered in Dive into Deep Learning? | Benefit | Effort |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| gluon.base | Base Package | Dynamic Graph support? | ? | Just about everywhere | ||
| gluon.model_zoo | Provides pre-defined and pre-trained models to help bootstrap machine learning applications | yes |
| High | Low | |
| gluon.data | Provides useful dataset loading and processing tools, as well as common public datasets. |
| ||||
| gluon.loss | Commonly used loss functions in neural networks |
| ||||
| gluon.nn | Neural network blocks |
| ||||
| gluon.rnn | Recurrent neural network API | |||||
| gluon.contrib | Provides many useful experimental APIs for new features. | None |