Safe rust interface

Resolves #19 (closed).

What's done so far:

• Implemented a thread-safe HerculesImmBox which provides a standard interface for creating inputs to Hercules functions and handling their outputs in a safe manner.
• Using HerculesImmBox in cava and edge detection, which significantly cleaned up the code
• Implemented a HerculesMutBox which provides a standard interface but for mutable references. Not actually sure whether this is ever needed.

ToDo:

• I think we should generate a safer function for the runner which accepts as inputs HerculesImmBux/HerculesMutBox and returns the same, since these boxes are typed and so it improves type-safety (it also removes most the remaining weirdness of the interface, specifically the .to())

requested review from @rarbore2

assigned to @aaronjc4

Generating the runner interface is necessary rather than a generic wrapper, unfortunately. I'll do that on this branch soon.

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• 12a3716e - Add example of safe runner interface

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Just pushed an example of what I think the safer interface should look like. I think ideally this safer interface would be the actual .run(...) method on runner, but we could keep the current version exposed maybe as .unsafe_run() or something like that.

approved this merge request

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• 9cc3faa7 - Improve HerculesMutBox. Edge detection safe interface issues

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• 401d1574 - Fixing lifetime issues

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• 401d1574...16d655ac - 6 commits from branch main
• 81240527 - Merge branch 'main' into safe-rust-interface

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• 5dbb02ca - Actually fixed this time

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• 5dbb02ca...9b3bb526 - 4 commits from branch main
• 70b71cfe - First attempt at new HerculesBox
• c076928b - Fix HerculesBox
• 4694aae1 - Fix immutable boxes and make them thread safe
• 71adbd48 - Add HerculesMutBox
• 573d79f9 - Add example of safe runner interface
• 3693e9c9 - Improve HerculesMutBox. Edge detection safe interface issues
• 81525f53 - Fixing lifetime issues
• 255898ca - Actually fixed this time

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• 27ce61d0 - Clarifying comment regarding run() lifetimes

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• 27ce61d0...5ae86850 - 4 commits from branch main
• 4cb853f6 - Merge branch 'main' into safe-rust-interface

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• 3b1f9e24 - Be more precise about lifetimes in RT backend

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• d78c63c3 - edge detection no longer needs longer than lifetime annotations

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• 3d6432d7 - edge detection no longer needs longer than lifetime annotations

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resolved all threads

So, I'm actually going to merge this in without auto-generating an interface in the RT backend. This is because HerculesBox currently only works for arrays of primitives - it doesn't support Hercules product or summation types. So, we can't auto-generate a safe interface using HerculesBox for all possible Hercules functions. That being said, the safe_run used in cava and edge detection is pretty easy to write, so I think this is fine (since we've addressed the main problem of needing device specific code in cava and edge detection)?