Naming scheme for vector classes

[pelesh]

It might be a good idea to decide on vector naming schemes. I think it would be important to have these schemes analog to what we settled on for matrices. Here are a few suggestions:

• Rename namespace vector to multivector. Then rename Vector class to Dense in analogy with matrix objects. The class will be called as multivector::Dense, i.e. this convention would include that using namespace multivector is never invoked.
• Alternatively, we could keep the namespace as vector and rename the class MultiDense, so the invocation of the type name would be vector::MultiDense. This name is a little bit cumbersome, but it also allows us to derive single vector from multivector class trivially and then have another type name vector::SingleDense. This may provide more flexibility.

Once we decide, it is straightforward to update names of classes and files.

@kswirydo @cameronrutherford @rothpc please chime in.

[pelesh]

Looking at vec_dev branch and the work @kswirydo charted there, I suggest following vector classes naming scheme:

namespace vector { namespace dense {
  class Multi {
    // dense multivector class declaration
  };
}}

The vector object should be called with both namespaces preceding it explicitly:

vector::dense::Multi vec;

This way, namespaces protect from name conflicts for vector classes and help code readability.

Alternatively, with this naming scheme we could take advantage of using statement like this:

using vector_type = vector::dense::Multi;
// some code
vector_type vec;

Here we define type vector_type that we want to use in this scope exclusively. We have a line that shows what vector_type is, and we use it as a short hand notation through the rest of the scope. If we change the first line, we are guaranteed to have a wholesale change within the entire scope.

On the other hand, using statements like this should be discouraged with this notation:

using namespace vector::dense;
// 300 lines of code
Multi vec;

If we change using statement here, we still need to verify that each instance of Multi (1) exists in the new namespace and (2) is used correctly.

A single vector class can be derived from Multi vector almost trivially:

namespace vector { namespace dense {
  class Single : public Multi {
    public:
      Single() : Multi(numVectors = 1)
      {}
    // some code
  };
}}

If we decide to implement e.g. our own matrix factorization, we will need a sparse vector object. In that case we could extend this naming scheme and define sparse vector class in different namespace like this:

namespace vector { namespace sparse {
  class Multi {
    // sparse multivector class declaration
  };
}}

Feedback is welcome!

[pelesh]

CC @shakedregev