[Repast-developer] More thoughts on Controllers

[Mark R. D. <mdi...@la...>]

I took ThinController and used it as an example, I also added the 
begin() method from BatchController to it (name actually called 
initSim()). This is because the begin method provides a transition point 
wherer the creation of the new thread occurs, making ThinController do 
alittle bit of thread startup management as well.


I'm concerned about the multiple methods used to "initialize" the 
Controller under different IController implementations.

1.) display() is used in the GUI Controller
2.) begin() is used in the BatchController
3.) nothing is really available in the ThinController

Would it be good to also have an "initialize()" style method that could 
be used to consolidate these different methods in IController?


public void initSim(){
	
	1.) in Controller this calls "display()"

	2.) in BatchController this calls "begin()"

	3.) a simple example in ThinController is attached.

}


I guess its a question of whether or not the setup should be done in a 
"Caller/Wrapper" or be done inside the IController. In this example it 
makes life easier in the caller. Given that BaseController is completely 
implemented in an asynchronous fashion, it is my opinion that 
Implementations that extend it should have at least some simple startup 
init like in display() (Controller) and begin() (BatchController).

Maybe if non-asynchronous control of the sim were wanted (simulation 
runs in the same thread as the controller). Then thread management 
issues would be managed in the Caller of the Controller, in which case, 
the controller would be very simplified. Maybe one would have 
AsynchronousBaseController and NonAsynchronousBaseController 
implementations with

Controller extends AsynchronousBaseController
BatchController extends AsynchronousBaseController
ThinController extends AsynchronousBaseController

and

SimpleController extends NonAsynchronousBaseController

this example would move threading issues completely out into the Caller.

These are just ideas, I'm sure of my opinion an this stuff, I'm not sure 
  how valuable something like SimpleController would really be. It might 
be usefull in situations where Parallel Processing is managed externally 
to the Repast Sim, like in massively parallel supercomputer systems.

Primarily, I think it would at least be wise to have something like 
initSim() in the IController.

-Mark