Contributing to MPS-Basic

Thank you for considering contributing to MPS-Basic! We appreciate your interest and support in making this project better.

Contribution Workflow

1. Create an issue and assign yourself.
2. Clone the repository and make your changes.
3. Create a new branch with the issue number included in the branch name in the format 1-fix-description.
4. Submit a pull request. Include references to the issue in the pull request description. Assign yourself as the assignee.
5. Your pull request will be reviewed and merged if at least one maintainer approves it.

Guidelines

• C++ Standard: We adhere to C++17.
• Use range-based for for (auto& e : v) instead of for (int i = 0; i < n; i++), whenever it is possible.

Exceptions

Do NOT use exceptions in MPS-Basic. However, some libraries may use exceptions internally. In that case, you need to catch the exceptions as soon as possible and quit the program. Also, you need to show where the exception is thrown in the error message.

Exception is a feature of C++, which stops subsequent code execution and jumps to the dedicated block to handle the error. It is useful in some cases, but it has disadvantages.

• Advantages
  • clear meanings of telling errors
• Disadvantages
  • It stops everything, which makes memory management difficult.
  • Unless you catch the exception, it will propagate to the uppper level, which makes it difficult to debug.

So, we decided not to use exceptions in MPS-Basic.

Macros

• Currently no macros are approved.
• Create an issue and discuss when you want to use a new macro.

Declaration of Namespace

• Should be minimum to prevent conflicts.
• Defined in each cpp files. Do not write it in hpp files to prevent spreading of the declaration.
• Do not declare entire name space.
• You can declare a function if that's commonly used.
• You are recommended to rename long namespace, instead of declaring it.

  ++
   using namespace std;            // not good
   using std::cout;                // not bad
   namespace fs = std::filesystem; // good

• Currently approved declarations:

  ++
   using std::cout;
   using std::endl;
   namespace fs = std::filesystem;
   namespace chrono = std::chrono;

• Curretnly prohibited declarations:

  ++
   using namespace std;
   using namespace Eigen; // to let beginers know Eigen is used
   using std::vector      // not to be confused with `Vector` in Eigen

Formatter

• We use clang-format as a formatter.
• Settings for formatting is written in .clang-format.
• Create an issue and discuss when you want to change the format settings.

Issue Creation

Please create an issue before starting to work on any feature or bug fix.

Commit Messages and Pull Request Titles

There are no strict requirements for commit messages or pull request titles. Pull requests will be squashed and merged.

Licensing

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

Communication

Communication for this project primarily takes place on GitHub.