Volunteering/Consulting for libm Development in glibc

[Ayan Shafqat]

On Tue, Feb 18, 2025 at 05:35:19PM +0000, Joseph Myers wrote:
> On Tue, 18 Feb 2025, Ayan Shafqat wrote:
> 
> I think these projects are not very suitable for people who are beginners 
> to glibc development, since they are much more about a thorough 
> understanding of how all the pieces in glibc fit together and the issues 
> associated with the many different configurations supported by glibc (and 
> ABI considerations, support for different compiler versions for building 
> code with glibc, ...), than about floating-point function implementation.  
> Improvements to individual functions (that are already present in glibc) 
> are more suitable for people familiar with floating point but not more 
> broadly with the full range of glibc configurations and development 
> principles.
> 
> <tgmath.h> is another example of something tricky involved with _Float16 
> support - where there are at least four different cases to test and 
> consider (GCC <= 6, GCC 7, GCC 8 to 12, GCC >= 13) - though Arm __fp16 was 
> too restricted to be usable in place of _Float16 so the GCC <= 6 case may 
> not actually be relevant for _Float16.
> 

Joseph:

I understand your point about the need for a broader understanding of
glibc's architecture and configuration management.  While my initial
interest was floating-point math and aspects of C23, I am definitely
keen to contribute in a way that is both helpful and allows me to learn
the necessary broader context of glibc development.

I would be grateful if you could suggest specific areas or functions
where contributions from someone with my background (in DSP, AI/ML, HPC,
and floating-point) could be beneficial and less encumbered by the
overall glibc configuration complexities at the outset.

Thank you again for your guidance.

Best,
Ayan