clab/dynet

"empty" RNNStates should be rigged to return zero vectors on .s(), .h(), etc

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#1,322 opened on Mar 24, 2018

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good first issueminor bug

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Description

having .s() return nothing on an RNN's initial state is very confusing (at least to me), as there must be some kind of value from which the RNN starts and not revealing it just hides what's going on (making things like automaton-extraction very difficult).

to my understanding, RNNStates with empty .s() are effectively treated as having zero-vectors in .add_input() computations (the matrix multiplication with the missing c/h vectors is simply skipped). It would be nice if .s(), .h(), .output(), etc reflected this.

Contributor guide

Research direction
Inspect how RNNStates handle empty .s() and .h() in the source code; ensure they return zero vectors when empty.
Tech stack
cpp
Domain
machine learning
Issue type
Bug
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
2
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
1-3 hours
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
Active
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
Clear
Prerequisites
C++
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
70