Python interfaces to C++ (and others)

[davidorme]

Background

We are definitely going to want to interface with C++ code right from the start.

@jaideep777 is developing a plant growth model (https://jaideep777.github.io/Plant-FATE/) and a ODE solver for modelling plant demographic processes (https://jaideep777.github.io/libpspm/), both of which are are written in C++.

Given that there are quite a lot of frameworks for creating Python / C++ interfaces:

Questions

Does anyone have any recommendations on the best Python / C++ interface to use?

[cc-a]

I'm not in a position to say which is best but the one we have hands-on experience with using is Swig.

[dalonsoa]

We have a new member of our team joining us at the end of June and that I was planing to put to work in this project because of his extensive experience doing precisely that. I'd suggest to postpone a decision about the best approach until he's here.

[jaideep777]

Actually, Plant-FATE now has a python interface based on pybind11.

[dalonsoa]

I think his expertise was pybind11, actually.