Roadmap for torch and pytorch
why did you choose to create this interface for python now, it did not seem a priority for the community (however I understand this will probably increase the adoption rate) ? as a torch user, I invested some time to learn how lua and torch operate, I guess it will operate the same way in the near future, can you give us some insights about this ? again as a torch user, would you see some big pros to move from torch to pytorch, without sacrifying performance for example ? maybe sharing your vision of how pytorch will be used at Facebook or Twitter ?
trypag
hi pierre, Continue to develop things in whichever frontend you want (Torch or PyTorch) and you can be assured that the Lua side of  things will be maintained. we have done some thorough benchmarks and found this to be not the case, especially for the Torch ecosystem where we cross the C boundaries all the time (LuaJIT traces stop everytime you cross the C boundary). recurrent nets, weight sharing and memory usage will be big positives with PyTorch compared to Torch, while retaining the flexibility of interfacing with C and the current speed of Torch.
smth
Hi all, Also, I’ve tried to find a roadmap for the future (2017+) of any of these implementations on top of the torch computing framework and got not much. I do see some of the ideas proposed in the previous roadmap for torch coming to life (like tutorials, standardized datasets, a nice forum to hang out), so I must point out to the big elephant in the room: which one will take the focus on now? Pytorch or Torch7? Don’t get me wrong, I much prefer python’s libraries because they are more standardized and mature than Lua’s, and Lua lacks many of the key functionality for some of these tasks (scipy, matplotlib, etc.). But this wasn’t that big of a deal due to some libraries like “fb.python” that allowed the use of some functionalities from python to be used with Lua, but I realise that python is a better choice for a research/developing platform compared to Lua. Another thing I would like to clarify from the devs is this: what is the big advantage of pytorch regarding tensorflow? Or shall I say, what makes pytorch stand out of the rest of the “competition”?
farrajota
Hi, could you further elaborate on “memory usage will be big positives with PyTorch compared to Torch”, any benchmark/example scenario?
rouniuyizu
Hi, You say retaining the current speed of Torch. From my takeaway of minpy, the dynamic definition of the graph in python would hurt speed, is that also true in pytorch. And when would you do start working on benchmarks.
ruotianluo
There is a slight impact on the perf (within 5% in most cases), but we know of a couple things that can speed things up further. Remember it’s still beta.
apaszke
You can try running the examples. We’re usually seeing 30-50% memory usage improvements. Benchmarks coming soon.
apaszke
trypag
That’s an old README, it has changed a bit since then.
apaszke