Code center > Suggestions
Should we do away with settings files?
Testlund:
I agree with Peter. The best would be if when I load a sim, all the settings in that sim will be loaded into the UI so I can go there and make changes. It's necessary for a zerobot sim. Now I have my own settings template which I use on almost any kind of sim, be it default bots or zerobots that have been running for awhile and can handle the costs. Also I find that when I start a sim with few bots in it, it will be under the treshold where costX is supposed to decrease. This goes so fast that the program thinks the starting costx is 0 instead of 1, which will cause the costx to not kick in until population reaches the treshold where it starts to increase, over 1000 bots! Therefor I like to enter the settings tab when the population reaches above the low treshold and set costx to 1, so the program knows that's the original cost. Just to mension an example why it's important to be able to manipulate the settings under a running sim.
Numsgil:
In addition to my comments in the start of the thread, as long as you're combining things that do the same thing, bot files (.dbo) could be incorporated into the same structure. They'd just be an empty sim with settings and a single bot in it.
There are a couple of other things that would be nice for simulation files, but these are tangential to the current discussion (but I'll list 'em anyway):
1. Sim saves in text format, to allow for users to create programs in scripting languages to modify or extract information from sims. Sprotiel was playing with this once if you remember, but the program was too finicky with how the saves need to be set up. XML would be a prime candidate.
2. Sims automatically compressed by the program. Not sure how this would work with 1 though. Maybe it just creates a zip with a single file inside it.
EricL:
--- Quote from: Testlund ---I agree with Peter. The best would be if when I load a sim, all the settings in that sim will be loaded into the UI so I can go there and make changes.
--- End quote ---
This is exactly what happens today.
--- Quote from: Testlund ---Just to mension an example why it's important to be able to manipulate the settings under a running sim.
--- End quote ---
To be clear, there is NO DIFFERENCE between the following:
Loading a settings file, adding some bots and hitting Start New.
Loading a sim, deleting all bots, adding the same bots as above and hitting Start New.
Similarly, once I implement the Load Settings From Sim option, there will be NO DIFFERENCE between the following:
Loading a settings file during a running sim and hitting Change.
Loading Settings-From-Sim from a sim file and hitting Change.
EricL:
--- Quote from: Numsgil ---In addition to my comments in the start of the thread, as long as you're combining things that do the same thing, bot files (.dbo) could be incorporated into the same structure. They'd just be an empty sim with settings and a single bot in it.
--- End quote ---
The code is already unified. That is, both the sim save routine and the dbo file save routine use the same underlying SaveRobotBody() to serialize a bot. I have no wish to unify the external concepts as I have no problems with there being a bot file format and a sim file format as they are conceptually different things. Besides, dbo files are more complex than just a single bot, more complex in ways that sim files are not. They can contain up to 50 "bots" if the serialzed organism is a mutltibot and there are other differences. There is special code to deal with such things as tie remapping (You can't re-use the same bot numbers for the cells of an organism in a dbo file as it may not be reloaded into the same sim or into the same sim in time, where you can if you are loading an entire sim). Same kind of thing for any incubating virus shots the cells may have. The shot nubmers will be different in any sim the guy gets put into......
--- Quote from: Numsgil ---1. Sim saves in text format, to allow for users to create programs in scripting languages to modify or extract information from sims. Sprotiel was playing with this once if you remember, but the program was too finicky with how the saves need to be set up. XML would be a prime candidate.
--- End quote ---
This would indeed be nice but is fraught with problems. I for one do not want to have to bullet proof the sim read routines (even if XML based) to make them resilient to potentially buggy external changes. It's hard enough today to make sure the load is the converse of save. Besides, it is far far down on my priority list. So far down that I can basically garrentee I will never get to this myself.
--- Quote from: Numsgil ---2. Sims automatically compressed by the program. Not sure how this would work with 1 though. Maybe it just creates a zip with a single file inside it.
--- End quote ---
I might entertain doing this is a brute force way. I.e. save, then compress. Uncompress, then load.
Testlund:
--- Quote from: EricL ---To be clear, there is NO DIFFERENCE...
--- End quote ---
Yes, you are right, but it seems to take a little effort to get it to show in the UI. I had to open and close the UI back and forth before the program got it.
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