Manual binding and semi-automated interface generation for efficient simulation backends with user-friendly frontends: A~demonstration for epidemic use cases

Maximilian Betz, Daniel-Michel Richter, Daniel Abele, René Schmieding, Henrik Zunker +1

Challenges and chances of mathematical software are directly entangled with the programming language used. Depending on the background of developers and users, conflicts between different goals may arise. While several, e.g., scripting languages allow a low barrier and user-friendly entry to mathematical modeling and simulation, corresponding implementations will most likely not allow timely outcomes for detailed simulations. In infectious disease modeling, while several large-scale software frameworks rely on C or C++ implementations, most models are implemented in Python or R. While the latter allow for fast prototyping and more interactive development, it has been shown for several applications that C or C++ implementations outperform plain Python or R implementations by factors between one and three orders of magnitude. In particular, in times of pandemics, the urgent need for swift estimation of the system's dynamics makes the use of large-scale models in these noncompiled languages prohibitive. In order to create synergies and close the gap between scientists from the application and the computational domain, binding libraries allow to execute entire, compiled software…