swarm-960110 released

[Nelson Minar]

I'm happy to say there's a new version of Swarm, swarm-960110. It's on
the release web site. A new documentation release (no huge changes,
but updated docs for new libraries) should be out soon.

You will find the code, as well as a list of changes, on the Swarm
release web page:
  http://www.santafe.edu/projects/swarm/release/
You will need authorization to read these pages:
  username swarm-beta
  password AlanTuring
Please do not give this password out to other people: for the current
beta test period, we want to control the set of people who use Swarm.     


Here's a text copy of the changes list:


Changes between swarm-951209 and swarm-960110

swarm-960110 brings lots of changes to activity, ga, probe support, and
space. Code that uses these libraries migiht need to make changes to work
with the new libraries. Most of the highest level interfaces have remained
the same, but the code underlying has completely changed.

One change is necessary in all Swarm applications. The last bit of code that
executes the schedule apparatus used to read:

   do {
     activityStatus = [swarmActivity run];
   } while (activityStatus != Completed && [simControl getAllDone] != 0);

This can simply be changed to

  [swarmActivity run];

If you don't do this, the Quit button will raise an error.

Summary of Changes

support/collections
     Array class added, contains/remove methods standardized, general
     improvements
swarmlibs/activity
     Support for variables in schedule, createActionCall to call a C
     function pointer, improved support for stopping execution, bug fixes
     for nested swarms, bug fixes for removing actions from schedule.
swarmlibs/ga
     new version
swarmlibs/simtools
     Quit works, being stopped no longer chews CPU.
swarmlibs/swarmobject and swarmlibs/simtools
     New version of the Probe library. Highest level interface hasn't
     changed, but everything else has. See Swarm docs on Probe for details.
swarmlibs/space
     New version of the Space library. Users of Grid2d won't need to change
     anything. Users of Ca2d or its children will: method names have
     changed. Ca2dDisplay was renamed Value2dDisplay. Inheritors will need
     to make changes. Things are now rooted in Discrete2d, a generic class
     that implements 2d arrays of 32 bit values. Child classes of this are
     Grid2d (same functionality as old), DblBuffer2d (supports swapping
     between two buffers for synchronous updates), Ca2d (same functionality
     as old, but now with 32 bit values), Diffuse2d, ConwayLife2d. See docs
     for more info.
apps/life
     New tiny app, Conway's Life. Mostly there because I needed a simple
     space testcase, but every good alife software package should include
     this demo.
apps/*
     updated for new schedule code, new space library. Heatbugs heat scale
     is now bigger by a factor of 128.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nelson Minar <address@hidden>
Last modified: Wed Jan 10 01:40:59 MST 1996