Builder: tidy correctness examples

[anshumanmohan]

Just a quick pass to lift a few common Python methods into their own file. This is presently just for the arbiter and the reduction tree, but the incoming FIFO/PIFO/PIFO tree work will benefit from these as well.

One additional observation has to do with how cb.if_ and cb.while_ often get used. I will make comments in the code below. If you like it, we can put those changes in too.

[rachitnigam]

It occurs to me that some of these could be in calyx-extra once #1626 is merged? The downside with that approach is that you have to an additional flit install calyx-extra to get the library in Python.

[rachitnigam]

I like the idea of higher-level builders provided in this library! I bet if we look at our generators, we'll find other useful patterns to add to this library!

[anshumanmohan]

Thanks for taking a look! Most of what you suggested is now in. I'll sum up the remaining items. I think these can all be no-ops, or separate PRs if we do want them to be acted upon.

1. Giving the builder library some sugary variants of if and while that are used when we know we want a cell and an intimately connected comb group. Builder: tidy correctness examples #1630 (comment)
2. The matter of where this should live. Builder: tidy correctness examples #1630 (comment)
3. Optional registers and other optional named components. Builder: tidy correctness examples #1630 (comment)

[rachitnigam]

Just pushed a fix for #1626 so hopefully that can be merged and we can move this to calyx-extra? I'm fine with the sugary variants of if and while as long as we abstract the (cell, comb_group) thing as a dataclass and only allow passing those to the sugared versions?

[sampsyo]

Very very cool!!!! I found a few code-level suggestions to offer, but I really like the idea of continuing to "upstream" useful utilities that help make the Python generator code easier to read/write.

[sampsyo]

Just pushed a fix for #1626 so hopefully that can be merged and we can move this to calyx-extra?

I think it might be even more natural for these to live right in the builder classes, as mentioned in one inline comment… partly because I expect they would be useful for any generator written using our eDSL, and partly because it will make the API a little more convenient.

[rachitnigam]

@sampsyo fair enough! Let's merge this into the builder API itself then

[anshumanmohan]

Thank you both for your time!!

I've resolved most of the comments, either via commits or via new issues. What's left is:

• Builder: tidy correctness examples #1630 (comment)
• Builder: tidy correctness examples #1630 (comment)
• Builder: tidy correctness examples #1630 (comment)

[sampsyo]

Excellent!