[Repast-developer] Re: hex space

[Laszlo G. <gu...@la...>]

At 10:24 AM 11/19/01 -0500, Nick Collier wrote:
>[...]
> > I think, only one part of my point is that the alternate design would allow
> > the use of tools with menus. More importantly, however, I think that the
> > neighborhood model is _really_ an identifying part of the space. A grid
> > with Moore neighborhood is just _not_ the same as a grid with von Neumann
> > neighborhood.
>
>I agree with you, but (there's always a but) when I originally wrote the
>space library I was incorrectly thinking of spaces as merely collections
>and the neighborhood code as various ways to get elements from those
>collections (in the same way that you can do pop() and some what
>inchorently get(int index) on a java.util.Stack). The current library
>doesn't reflect the neighborhood model as an identifying part of the
>space. This was poor design on my part, not fully understanding the
>agent modeling domain. A re-design of the space library would take this
>into account.

Hi,

I get the feeling that I might have been somewhat offending in pressing
this issue. If that's the case, please accept my apologies.

I really don't think that the original design was poor, or anything. The
fact is that it was (and still _is_) the 'state of the art' in agent-based
simulation. The issue here is that agent-based simulation is an evolving
subject and we all try to do work that keeps up with its evolution.

Taking me for example, I've been doing agent-based modeling and
I've been developing tools for it for the last 5 years or so, but the
ideas I've recently expressed did not come to me until a few months
ago. (Moreover, I am not entirely sure what I will be thinking of all this
5 years from now. :-))

So, in general, I agree with everything you wrote in this mail (above
and below), but thought it would worth pointing out that no offense
was intended.

Gulya

> > >I'm willing to make major additions and within reason some changes to
> > >the current space library. What would be nice is a new architecture
> > >along the lines of what you've been talking about that could be used in
> > >conjunction with the current one. The current space code could be
> > >deprecated, although perhaps not in the java sense, and users would be
> > >encouraged to use the new one. If you'd like to take the lead on this,
> > >feel free.
> >
> > I am not sure I understand this. Are you thinking of a completely disjoint
> > space hierarchy, or space classes that implement several interfaces or
> > something comletely different?
>
>What I'm thinking is a new design nearly from scratch and this would
>also require new gui displays classes as well. You've pointed out
>several conceptual problems in the space library and I don't think these
>can be rectified by shoe-horning in new code, especially if we want to
>incorporate the ideas from your longer musings on spaces.
>
>Nick
>
>--
>Nick Collier
>Social Science Research Computing
>University of Chicago
>http://repast.sourceforge.net

--
Laszlo Gulyas, MSc              Phone: (617) 
384-9216
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