[Repast-developer] Re: More thoughts on Controllers

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

Forgot the attachment, sorry.

Mark R. Diggory wrote:
> 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
> 
> 
> 
> 
>