Implementations

One of the key concepts for thorns is the concept of the implementation. Relationships among thorns are all based upon relationships among the implementations they provide. In principle, it should be possible to swap one thorn providing an implementation with another thorn providing that implementation, without affecting any other thorn.

An implementation defines a group of variables and parameters which are used to implement some functionality. For example, the thorn CactusPUGH/PUGH provides the implementation driver. This implementation is responsible for providing memory for grid variables and for communication. Another thorn can also implement driver, and both thorns can be compiled in at the same time. At runtime, the user can decide which thorn providing driver is used. No other thorn should be affected by this choice.

When a thorn decides it needs access to a variable or a parameter provided by another thorn, it defines a relationship between itself and the other thorn's implementation, not explicitly with the other thorn. This allows the transparent replacement, at compile or runtime, of one thorn with another thorn providing the same functionality as seen by the other thorns.