The Kotlin MATHematics library was initially intended as a Kotlin-based analog to Python's `numpy` library. Later we found that kotlin is much more flexible language and allows superior architecture designs. In contrast to `numpy` and `scipy` it is modular and has a lightweight core. The `numpy`-like experience could be achieved with [kmath-for-real](/kmath-for-real) extension module.
* Provide a flexible and powerful API to work with mathematics abstractions in Kotlin-multiplatform (JVM and JS for now and Native in future).
* Provide basic multiplatform implementations for those abstractions (without significant performance optimization).
* Provide bindings and wrappers with those abstractions for popular optimized platform libraries.
## Non-goals
* Be like Numpy. It was the idea at the beginning, but we decided that we can do better in terms of API.
* Provide best performance out of the box. We have specialized libraries for that. Need only API wrappers for them.
* Cover all cases as immediately and in one bundle. We will modularize everything and add new features gradually.
* Provide specialized behavior in the core. API is made generic on purpose, so one needs to specialize for types, like for `Double` in the core. For that we will have specialization modules like `for-real`, which will give better experience for those, who want to work with specific types.
* **Commons-math wrapper** It is planned to gradually wrap most parts of [Apache commons-math](http://commons.apache.org/proper/commons-math/)
library in Kotlin code and maybe rewrite some parts to better suit the Kotlin programming paradigm, however there is no fixed roadmap for that. Feel free
to submit a feature request if you want something to be done first.
KMath is developed as a multi-platform library, which means that most of the interfaces are declared in the [common module](/kmath-core/src/commonMain). Implementation is also done in the common module wherever possible. In some cases, features are delegated to platform-specific implementations even if they could be done in the common module for performance reasons. Currently, the JVM is the main focus of development, however Kotlin/Native and Kotlin/JS contributions are also welcome.
Calculation performance is one of major goals of KMath in the future, but in some cases it is not possible to achieve both performance and flexibility. We expect to focus on creating convenient universal API first and then work on increasing performance for specific cases. We expect the worst KMath benchmarks will perform better than native Python, but worse than optimized native/SciPy (mostly due to boxing operations on primitive numbers). The best performance of optimized parts could be better than SciPy.
Release artifacts are accessible from bintray with following configuration (see documentation for [kotlin-multiplatform](https://kotlinlang.org/docs/reference/multiplatform.html) form more details):
The project requires a lot of additional work. The most important thing we need is a feedback about what features are required the most. Feel free to open feature issues with requests. We are also welcome to code contributions, especially in issues marked as [waiting for a hero](https://github.com/mipt-npm/kmath/labels/waiting%20for%20a%20hero).
