Consider incorporating or contributing to Futility

[aarograh]

This package is of interest to me and I think there's a lot of value in having something like this for Fortran. I did want to make a note of the package https://github.com/CASL/Futility which overlaps a lot with the stated goals of fortran-lang/stdlib. This isn't really a specific issue/suggestion, but more of an initial contact regarding the similar goals of the 2 projects. I thought there might be some value to discussing the similarities/differences, potentially contributing to both projects instead of both of them being developed completely independently, etc. I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of some of the fortran-lang/stdlib developers.

[milancurcic]

Hi Aaron, welcome and thank you for pointing out the Futility project (not to be confused with https://github.com/cmacmackin/futility).

I took a look and definitely see Futility as more mature and with somewhat narrower scope than stdlib. Let's discuss which, if any, parts of Futility could be adapted into stdlib. Overall, the scope of stdlib is similar to that of SciPy + general purpose tools and algorithms. IMO general stuff like geometry, strings, and file I/O are more in scope than implementation-specific like HDF5, PetSc, or Trilinos interfaces. Also, could down the road stdlib be a dependency to Futility for some common functionality? Let's discuss what we'd need to do for that to happen.

We'll have a monthly call this week, see: https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/fortran-monthly-call-july-2020/195/5. It'd be great if you and your colleagues can join.

I also suggest adding Futility to the index of Fortran packages on the website: https://fortran-lang.org/packages/. Would you mind submitting a PR to https://github.com/fortran-lang/fortran-lang.org? See this doc on how to add a package to the registry.

[certik]

I also added Futility to the long list of similar projects at #1.