Change Num Representation in Existing Network Instances

[sbondorf]

Networks are composed of servers and flows that are, in turn, partially defined by curves. These curves naturally hold numbers (Num instances) of a certain representation defined in the Calculator. In case the representation is changed (e.g., in tests), the current solution is to create a new Network instance. Instead, a Network instance should be able to just trigger updates of its member variables.

[matyesz]

Is there any possible way/API to convert a curve into a new NumBackend? I think we will need some conversion faciltiy from one backend to the other if we want to keep the original values of the curves.

[sbondorf]

There was no progress in this issue yet although it seems a straight-forward task.
The biggest problem I see is converting a Real{Double,Single}Precision-backed curve to a Rational{Ø,Big}Int-backed one. Besides the obvious difference in expressiveness, there is the case where curve resulted from a sequence of operations and was thus subject to rounding errors / the machine epsilon problem.
Having said that, maybe we should remove the "good first issue" label.