Overview

The structure of applications built on top of the FleCSI programming system assumes three basic types of users. Each of the user types has their own set of responsibilities that are designed to separate concerns and to make sure that development tasks are intuitive and achievable by the associated user type.

Tip

A single individual may play the role of more than one user type.

The user types are:

  • Core Developer
    These are users who design, implement, and maintain the core FleCSI library. Generally, these users are expert C++ developers who have a well-developed understanding of the the low-level design of the FleCSI software architecture. These users are generally computer scientists with expertise in generic programming techniques, data structure design, and optimization.

  • Specialization Developer
    These are users who adapt the core FleCSI data structures and runtime interfaces to create domain-specific interfaces for application developers. These users are required to understand the components of the FleCSI interface that can be statically specialized and must have a solid understanding of the runtime interface. Additionally, specialization developers are assumed to understand the requirements of the application area for which they are designing an interface. These users are generally computational scientists with expertise in one or more numerical methods areas.

  • Application Developer
    These users are methods developers or physicists who use a particular FleCSI specialization layer to develop and maintain application codes. These are the FleCSI end-users, who have expertise in designing and implementing numerical methods to solve complicated, multiphysics simulation problems.

The source code implementing a FleCSI project will reflect this user structure: the project will link to the core FleCSI library; the project will use one or more specializations (also usually from libraries); and the application developers will use the core and specialization interfaces to write their applications.

Documentation

The FleCSI documentation is structured as follows:

  • Build & Install. This section explains how to download the FleCSI source code, lists its dependencies on other software, and specifies how to configure and build it.

  • Tutorial. The tutorial teaches FleCSI’s core concepts through a sequence of annotated examples and associated discussion. All tutorial examples are provided in the FleCSI source distribution and can be compiled and run.

  • User Guide. The user guide delves into more depth on the FleCSI programming model.

  • API Reference. This section provides links to the Doxygen-generated API documentation, both the public API intended for use by application and specialization developers and the internal API needed only by FleCSI core developers.

  • Developer Guide. The Developer Guide is meaningful only to FleCSI core developers. It describes how FleCSI is implemented and provides guidance on modifying, managing, and releasing FleCSI itself.

See also the Release Notes for advertisements of new features and bug fixes, announcements of deprecated APIs, and warnings about issues that may be encountered when upgrading applications to use new versions of FleCSI.

Namespaces

FleCSI uses C++ namespaces to identify interfaces that are intended for different user types:

  • flecsi
    The types and functions defined in the flecsi namespace are intended for all user types but are primarily targeted to application developers.

Warning

Application developers should never use types or methods that are not defined in the top-level flecsi namespace.

  • flecsi::X
    The types and functions defined in flecsi::X namespaces, where X is nested within flecsi, e.g., flecsi::topology, should only be used by specialization and core developers.

  • flecsi::X::Y
    The types and functions defined in flecsi::X::Y namespaces are intended for internal FleCSI development only! Use of any of these types or functions outside of the core library is undefined!!!.