[Numpy-discussion] ANN: pyMIC v0.6 Released

[Klemm, Michael]

Announcement: pyMIC v0.6
=========================

I'm happy to announce the release of pyMIC v0.6.

pyMIC is a Python module to offload computation in a Python program to the Intel Xeon Phi coprocessor.  It contains offloadable arrays and device management functions.  It supports invocation of native kernels (C/C++, Fortran) and blends in with Numpy's array types for float, complex, and int data types.

For more information and downloads please visit pyMIC's Github page: https://github.com/01org/pyMIC.  You can find pyMIC's mailinglist at https://lists.01.org/mailman/listinfo/pymic.

Full change log:
=================

Version 0.6
----------------------------
- Experimental support for the Windows operating system.
- Switched to Cython to generate the glue code for pyMIC.
- Now using Markdown for README and CHANGELOG.
- Introduced PYMIC_DEBUG=3 to trace argument passing for kernels.
- Bugfix: added back the translate_device_pointer() function.
- Bugfix: example SVD now respects order of the passed matrices when applying the `dgemm` routine.
- Bugfix: fixed memory leak when invoking kernels.
- Bugfix: fixed broken translation of fake pointers.
- Refactoring: simplified bridge between pyMIC and LIBXSTREAM.

Version 0.5
----------------------------
- Introduced new kernel API that avoids insane pointer unpacking.
- pyMIC now uses libxstreams as the offload back-end
  (https://github.com/hfp/libxstream).
- Added smart pointers to make handling of fake pointers easier.

Version 0.4
----------------------------
- New low-level API to allocate, deallocate, and transfer data
  (see OffloadStream).
- Support for in-place binary operators.
- New internal design to handle offloads.

Version 0.3
----------------------------
- Improved handling of libraries and kernel invocation.
- Trace collection (PYMIC_TRACE=1, PYMIC_TRACE_STACKS={none,compact,full}).
- Replaced the device-centric API with a stream API.
- Refactoring to better match PEP8 recommendations.
- Added support for int(int64) and complex(complex128) data types.
- Reworked the benchmarks and examples to fit the new API.
- Bugfix: fixed syntax errors in OffloadArray.

Version 0.2
----------------------------
- Small improvements to the README files.
- New example: Singular Value Decomposition.
- Some documentation for the API functions.
- Added a basic testsuite for unit testing (WIP).
- Bugfix: benchmarks now use the latest interface.
- Bugfix: numpy.ndarray does not offer an attribute 'order'.
- Bugfix: number_of_devices was not visible after import.
- Bugfix: member offload_array.device is now initialized.
- Bugfix: use exception for errors w/ invoke_kernel & load_library.

Version 0.1
----------------------------
Initial release.


Dr.-Ing. Michael Klemm
Senior Application Engineer
Software and Services Group
Developer Relations Division
Phone	+49 89 9914 2340
Cell	+49 174 2417583


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