/*
 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
 * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
 * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
 * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
 * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
 * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 */
package org.apache.mahout.math.backend

import org.apache.mahout.math.backend.jvm.JvmBackend

import collection._
import scala.reflect.{ClassTag, classTag}
import jvm.JvmBackend

/**
  * == Overview ==
  *
  * Backend representing collection of in-memory solvers or distributed operators.
  *
  * == Note to implementors ==
  *
  * Backend is expected to initialize & verify its own viability lazily either upon first time the
  * class is loaded, or upon the first invocation of any of its methods. After that, the value of
  * [[Backend.isAvailable]] must be cached and defined.
  *
  * A Backend is also a [[SolverFactory]] of course in a sense that it enumerates solvers made
  * available via the backend.
  */
trait Backend extends SolverFactory {

  /**
    * If backend has loaded (lazily) ok and verified its availability/functionality,
    * this must return `true`.
    *
    * @return `true`
    */
  def isAvailable: Boolean

}
