Better API

[Kaixhin]

Currently nninit is a bit clunky (in an effort to avoid side-effects). I would like to modify nn.Module to have something like an init method, with an API along the lines of:

nn.Linear(4096, 1000):init('weight', 'xavier', 'normal'):init('weight', 'sparse', 0.3):init('bias', 'constant', 0)

I think returning the module and therefore being able to chain calls makes it a lot more elegant. The current way of entering parameters can also be discussed. Any thoughts @soumith / @skaae?

[Kaixhin]

New API ready for review at https://github.com/Kaixhin/nninit/tree/chaining.

Edit: Now on master.

[soumith]

ooooh, i like the :init style.

[Kaixhin]

Glad to hear it. My 2 main questions at this point are:

• Is adding the init method to nn.Module relatively safe at this point?
• Using the 'wb' flag for 'constant', 'normal' and 'uniform' is slightly clunky; any alternatives? Having winit for weights and binit for biases?

Edit: Now using wInit and bInit to enforce separation between the two. Please comment if you think this needs reviewing.