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Can programmers help accelerate the folding process?
Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2020 5:45 pm
by PPRHCKR
Hello everyone, this is my first time posting in this forum.
I've been wondering if there is any way for programmers to contribute to this project's code, so that we can accelerate the process of fighting COVID-19.
Does anyone know if there is a community devoted to relaying problems/optimizing algorithms?
Thanks in advance.
Re: Can programmers help accelerate the folding process?
Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2020 6:08 pm
by foldy
There are already scientists optimizing algorithms.
The scientific code is run using OpenMM
https://github.com/openmm/openmm
But the FahClient could need programmers help to improve.
Currently only the FAHControl and fah-web-client is open source.
https://github.com/FoldingAtHome/fah-control
https://github.com/FoldingAtHome/fah-web-client
Re: Can programmers help accelerate the folding process?
Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2020 10:27 pm
by toTOW
The CPU scientific core is using Gromacs, which source is also available :
http://www.gromacs.org/
Re: Can programmers help accelerate the folding process?
Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2020 4:09 am
by bruce
Those two scientific code-bases are really pretty well opimzed, having been Open Source projects for many years.
For the FAH-Specific code wrapped around the science code. you might pick something from the list of known issues and generate a fix.
https://github.com/FoldingAtHome/fah-issues/issues
Re: Can programmers help accelerate the folding process?
Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2020 12:18 am
by toTOW
bruce wrote:Those two scientific code-bases are really pretty well optimized, having been Open Source projects for many years.
I'm pretty sure that there's still room for improvement in the GPU core code (OpenMM).
Re: Can programmers help accelerate the folding process?
Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2020 12:28 am
by bruce
It's an open project. Feel free to propose changes.
http://openmm.org/
Re: Can programmers help accelerate the folding process?
Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2020 10:06 pm
by lupino3
Is there a reason why the core (server and client) is not open source? We could help with it as well if there are known issues.
Also, is there a way to help you guys on the server side? Peeking at the website I see a bunch of Bad Gateway errors, maybe we could help with the web applications or by adding some cloud-based layer of indirection (or caching) there?
Re: Can programmers help accelerate the folding process?
Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2020 2:51 am
by Joe_H
lupino3 wrote:Is there a reason why the core (server and client) is not open source? We could help with it as well if there are known issues.
Also, is there a way to help you guys on the server side? Peeking at the website I see a bunch of Bad Gateway errors, maybe we could help with the web applications or by adding some cloud-based layer of indirection (or caching) there?
The servers I don't know about, development for that code is aimed particularly at dedicated servers run by the various research groups that are part of the Folding@home Consortium.
The client includes code for dealing with the digitally signed downloads and uploads involved. For that reason the code has not been moved to open source yet. As I understand it, there are plans to move more of the code out to open source once they separate out that part. But those are on hold now that the developer is working on the urgent issues of getting more servers and other resources out.