Infer.NET development

Usability issues

When people have difficulty understanding part of Infer.NET or get stuck implementing something we should note it here and try and come up with a solution.

Modelling API

• Breaking symmetry is very clumsy at the moment and InitialiseTo can be confusing.
  Solution: introduce BreakSymmetry attribute? or InitialiseToSamplesFrom(distribution)?

• Handling DistributionArrays and doing inference on arrays is non intuitive
  Solution: hide away DistributionArrays even more and work with .NET arrays where possible

• Using from F# can be awkward
  Solution: examine F# code and create convenience methods for using from F# e.g. operator overloads

• Support explicit modelling language, like BUGS?
  Solution: perhaps introduce Csoft using Oslo technology or offer direct support for BUGS models

• Confusion over SetTo() vs. assignment
  Solution: provide better documentation of this issue

• Confusion when indexing by a random variable and the need to surround this by a switch
  Solution: can we automatically handle this case by creating a surrounding switch as needed? - we have discussed this in the past.

• Accidentally calling the wrong constructors for Vector, Discrete etc.
  Solution: use named factory methods e.g. Discrete.FromProbs(), Discrete.Uniform() and deprecate the constructors

Inference & monitoring

• It is not clear when inference is happening and what is being inferred.
  Solution: implement new inference proposal

• Factor graph display does not show gates
  Solution: gates are partially shown via edges named “selector”.