Re: Heatbug questions...

[Ken Cline]

On Sun, 27 Jul 1997 address@hidden wrote:

> Now the questions:
> I scouring the code, trying to get a better understanding of Swarm
> styles and concepts, Is there a definite style that "we" follow?  Like
> Types = ExampleObjectType, Object = exampleObject, Methods DoSomething
> (with a verb), etc???

Hmmm...  I think there are several levels of "style".  At
the top is Object-Oriented programming style.  Then there's
Objective-C style (for example see http://www.next.com/Pubs/
Documents/OPENSTEP/ObjectiveC/oop.htm#893).

And yes there's a "Swarm style" as well.  For instance, the
CREATING vs. USING phases of a class. See http://www.santafe.edu/
projects/swarm/swarmdocs/swarmObjC.html

I would say a lot of the "style" comes from how decide to
build your model, eg which agents you want and how they will
be grouped.  That being said, there are more or less
standard attributes that agents and swarms have.


> And specific questions....
> 1 - Where is the agent/parameter "bug" and "abug" defined/declared?

I suppose you are referring to a parameter name such as,
from the HeatbugModelSwarm, "-addHeatbug: (Heatbug *) bug"?

In this case (and I think in all cases), "bug" is just the
name of a pointer that is pointing at an instance of the
Heatbug class.


> 2 - Where is DisplayFreq from?  Is it a library or just a flat
> parameter, and if so, what does it do?

Are you referring to "displayFrequency"?  If so this is an
integer (ie int) defined in HeatbugObserverSwarm.  It is
used to set the HeatbugObserverSwarm's displaySchedule
repeat interval.  That is, it sets how often the
displaySchedule is repeated or, in other words, how often
the GUIs (heatDisplay, unhappyGraph, etc.) are updated.


Well I hope I didn't totally misunderstand your questions.
Good luck with your presentation.

Ken.

PS: BTW, have you looked at:

http://www.santafe.edu/projects/swarm/swarmdocs/apps/heatbugs.txt

Also, if you have time, peruse the links on the user
community pages, some of those have material that can be
useful for explaining Swarm to others.


_________________________________________________________
Ken Cline                             address@hidden
SAIC                                 VOICE (410) 571-0413
Annapolis, MD                          FAX (301) 261-8427



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