df: Event types

[johnandersen777]

Project Description

A large part of DFFML is the concept of a DataFlow.

Chance orchestrator context run so that it yields three objects, context, event
type, results.

Currently we have a lot of code that looks like this:

for ctx, results in run(dataflow, [... inputs ...]):
    print("The results of", ctx, "are", results)

When this project is over, those for loops will look like this:

for ctx, event, data in run(dataflow, [... inputs ...]):
    if event == EventType.OUTPUT:
        print("The results of", ctx, "are", data)
    elif event == EventType.INPUT:
        print("An input entered network for context", ctx, ":", data)

The way things currently work is that the run function yields when the
context is finished running. It yields the context that was running and the
results.

We need to add another part to a data flow so we can yield Inputs. The event
type would be INPUT, and in the DataFlow we should add a section for events.
In the events section for INPUT events we could specify when an
input should be yielded. We use the inputs section to specify which transitions
between operations should be yielded.

This will enable us to do things like running a DataFlow and not only yielding
the results, but data that's moving through the network as the DataFlow is
running. This allows developers to build applications that show the progress of
a DataFlow as it's running.

Skills

• Python
• Refactoring a large codebase
• Asyncio knowledge would be very helpful here

Difficulty

Intermediate/Hard

Related Readings

• https://intel.github.io/dffml/master/contributing/gsoc/2021/index.html

Getting Started

• Read the contributing guidelines
  • https://intel.github.io/dffml/master/contributing/index.html
• Go through the quickstart
  • https://intel.github.io/dffml/master/quickstart/model.html
• Go through the data flow related docs and tutorials
  • https://intel.github.io/dffml/master/tutorials/dataflows/index.html
  • https://intel.github.io/dffml/master/examples/integration.html
  • https://intel.github.io/dffml/master/examples/shouldi.html
  • https://intel.github.io/dffml/master/examples/dataflows.html
  • https://intel.github.io/dffml/master/examples/mnist.html
  • https://intel.github.io/dffml/master/examples/flower17/flower17.html
  • https://intel.github.io/dffml/master/examples/webhook/index.html
• Read about what data flows are and how they work
  • https://intel.github.io/dffml/master/concepts/index.html#dataflows
  • https://intel.github.io/dffml/master/concepts/dataflow.html
• Come up with a basic example where the user will see inputs moving through the
  network.
  • Make it simple and include a few operations.
  • Get the DataFlow running.
• Look at the code in dffml/df/memory.py and understand how it relates to the
  docs covering DataFlows conceptually.
• Plan out what all needs to change within dffml/df/memory.py and the other
  code and examples that would change as a result.

Potential Mentors

• John Andersen
• Saksham Arora

Tracking and Discussion

This project is related to the following issues. Please discuss and ask
questions in the issue comments. Please also ping mentors on
Gitter when you post on the following
issues so that they are sure to see that you've commented.

• df: Event types #919

[johnandersen777]

This will probably require extensive changes since anywhere where OrchestratorContext.run is being calling in an async for loop will need to be modified. If you want to do this please let me know we can go over it. I'd recommend that someone with experiance with dataflows do this. If you don't have experiance a good place to start is by looking over the dataflows tutorials and the examples involving dataflows, and asking questions to make sure you understand what's going on there. These documents may also be helpful for understanding dataflows conceptually:

• https://intel.github.io/dffml/master/concepts/index.html#dataflows
• https://intel.github.io/dffml/master/concepts/dataflow.html

[johnandersen777]

We need to make sure events are propagated from subflows too

[johnandersen777]

We also need to make sure that we have some way of marking Inputs or events as security sensitive. For example the value of a private key should never be sent in the event log, unless explicitly requested by the user.