[erlang-questions] write the ant simulation in Erlang?

jm jeffm@REDACTED
Fri Oct 10 04:54:46 CEST 2008


Richard O'Keefe wrote:
>
> On 10 Oct 2008, at 1:51 pm, jm wrote:
>> This was my first reaction when seeing a description of the problem. 
Read the first sentence. I was not stating it was a good idea merely 
sketching out an idea between doing some work. There are obviously some 
problems with the approach taken, but I think using a process per square 
(cell) or a subset of squares (patch) is a more natural approach for 
erlang.  As this approach mantains the atomic nature of the squares and 
scales more easily as the cores/processes grow.

> First, I was originally talking about dividing the world
> up into *patches*, not *cells*.  In an 80x80 world,
> patches might be 10x10, which is only 64 patches.
>
> Second, why on earth would you *name* the patch processes?
Just a simple way to find the correct process in a first cut and easier 
to see what is going on. You could also prime each ant with knowledge of 
which processes represent each square(s) or each patch/cell could 
contain this knowledge which is what I think your thinking.
>
>     startup() ->
>         create an 80 x 80 array of processes
>         all running cell/0 using spawn_link
>         set up all the neighbour links
>         send each cell a !go message
>

> Moving is a little tricky because we need to change the
> state of two cells (if doing cells) or possibly two
> patches (if doing patches).
Can you live with an ant occupying two squares at once? Then enter the 
new location first before leaving the old location.

Jeff.




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