Using Answer Set Programming for HPC Dependency Solving · HackerPapers discussions

Using Answer Set Programming for HPC Dependency Solving — mentioned by teleforce

Thu, 16 Oct 2025 02:28:46 GMT

It's good that you've mentioned Spack but not for HPC work, and that's very interesting. This a high level overview by one of the Spack authors from the HN post back in 2023 (top comment from 100 comments), including the Spack original paper link [1]: At a very high level, Spack has: * Nix's installation model and configuration hashing * Homebrew-like packages, but in a more expressive Python DSL, and with more versions/options * A very powerful dependency resolver that doesn't just pick from a set of available configurations -- it configures your build according to possible configurations.…

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

Using Answer Set Programming for HPC Dependency Solving — mentioned by tgamblin

Fri, 26 May 2023 21:44:27 GMT

Love this article and the push to build awareness of what modern SAT solvers can do. It's worth mentioning that there are higher level abstractions that are far more accessible than SAT. If I were teaching a course on this, I would start with either Answer Set Programming (ASP) or Satisfiability Modulo Theories (SMT). The most widely used solvers for those are clingo [0] and Z3 [1]: With ASP, you write in a much clearer Prolog-like syntax that does not require nearly as much encoding effort as your typical SAT problem. Z3 is similar -- you can code up problems in a simple Python API, or write…

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

Using Answer Set Programming for HPC Dependency Solving — HN submission

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 12:42:57 GMT

Simplifying HPC dependency solving with logic programming

3 points; 0 discussion replies on HN. Paper and source history. A submission is not an endorsement.

Using Answer Set Programming for HPC Dependency Solving — mentioned by tgamblin

Mon, 20 Mar 2023 20:42:13 GMT

Original author here -- since I know that people click the comments to decide whether to read further, here's a (biased?) summary: Spack is aimed at end users, developers, and admins. It's used primarily in HPC at the moment but it would be great to see use outside of the HPC community. Spack supports: 1. Basic installation (spack install foo, foo@3.1.2, foo@3.1.2 +option, etc.) 2. Reproducible environments, via `spack.yaml` and `spack.lock` files that you can version in a repo. You can use this to build a custom software stack, build some dependencies for a project, etc. 3. Building many…

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

Using Answer Set Programming for HPC Dependency Solving — mentioned by tgamblin

Fri, 17 Mar 2023 08:38:11 GMT

Have you looked at Spack (https://github.com/spack/spack)? Disclaimer: I lead the project. Spack essentially is nix with dependency resolution. spack packages can have conditional (nearly) anything: versions, options, compiler choices, dependencies (including virtual deps). The resolver can make choices about all of those. See here for more details: https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.08404

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

Using Answer Set Programming for HPC Dependency Solving — mentioned by tgamblin

Fri, 11 Nov 2022 21:03:29 GMT

Co-author/spack guy/occasional frequenter of Nix fora here. Aside from what p4ul said above, the main architectural differences between Nix and Spack are: 1. Spack has a dependency solver (the "concretizer"), Nix does not 2. Spack packages are parameterized, and we solve for parameters like build options, compilers, virtual dependencies, etc., so the user can say what tweaks they want on the CLI or in an environment. To do this same with Nix packages you typically need to hack on some nixpkgs. The goal of Spack is to be able to compose and swap libraries, compilers, and other options easily.…

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

Using Answer Set Programming for HPC Dependency Solving — HN submission

Fri, 11 Nov 2022 20:54:20 GMT

Using Answer Set Programming for HPC Dependency Solving

3 points; 0 discussion replies on HN. Paper and source history. A submission is not an endorsement.

Using Answer Set Programming for HPC Dependency Solving — HN submission

Mon, 24 Oct 2022 07:36:08 GMT

Using Answer Set Programming for Dependency Solving in Spack

1 point; 0 discussion replies on HN. Paper and source history. A submission is not an endorsement.