The Pheromone Volume III Issue 5

[Irene Anne Lee]

                     The Swarm SFI-Hive Pheromone
                          Volume 3, Issue 5
                          January 26, 1998



   The Pheromone will stand to inform users of the activities and
goals of the hive and user community.  Contributions are accepted that
announce Swarm-related events or activities in any of the growing
Swarm colonies around the world.  To contribute, send e-mail to
address@hidden  The Pheromone is mailed out on Tuesday (or....
maybe Wednesday or...) if and only if there is information to be
disseminated.


Table of Contents
-----------------
   I. Happy New Year
  II. Version 1.0.5
 III. WindowsNT/Windows95 version status
  IV. Swarmfest '98 update
   V. The Annual Swarm Survey T-shirt Drawing
  VI. The Swarm Advisory Board

========================================================================
   I. Happy New Year.  

We wish the Swarm a very happy new year.  May all your programs compile and 
may all your simulations exhibit a life of their own.

  II. WindowsNT/Windows95 version status

We offer our sincerest apologies for not delivering version 1.1 as promised.
We have decided to move the remainder of the tasks necessary to complete the 
WinNT/Win95 version of Swarm back in-house.  Our independent contractor was 
having less and less time to dedicate to the project and Marcus Daniels and 
Alex Lancaster, our in-house programmers, were willing and able to take on 
the task.  We are currently in the initial stages of merging the code. We 
will have a more complete picture of the remaining tasks and the delivery date
upon further investigation.  A current summary of the progress follows.

Completed tasks:

The infrastructure for function call translation between Java and ObjC
  with the exception of the probe reflection interface.

Initial implementation of bar graphs and plots adopted from PT plots 

Abstract GUI protocol (for a subset of tkobjc GUI functionality) as
exhibited in arborgames, bank, heatbugs, market, mousetrap, sugarscape,
and village applications.

Classes implemented:
  Button
  ButtonPanel
  Raster 
  Widget

Remaining tasks:
(n.b. This list is incomplete and subject to change.)

General / architectural issues:

  Event processing
    An input queue is partially implemented, it need to be completed and
      hooked into the ActionCache class.  In general, events need to  
      be reliably collected and dispatched to Swarm and the Windows
      environment, e.g.: window resizing. 

    Current `gui' interface for non-tkobjc library things is derived from 
      Tk-like semantics -- the places where Swarm previously talked to the 
      Tcl interpreter directly need to be replaced.

  Some simtools widgets made direct use of Tk `pack'.
      There are few remaining instances of non-tkobjc libraries making 
      modifications to GUI things that need to be addressed.

  Evaluate completeness, correctness, and efficiency of Java <-> Objc interface

  Portability / packaging (e.g installer shield, Unix configuration
      things) 

  Possible improvements to the distribution and install process like
      RPM or DPKG packaging for GNU/Linux.
      
Incomplete implementations:
  Colormap (can't handle named colors)
  Frame (doesn't create a frame).

Need non-trivial usability improvements to: 
  Graph, GraphElement
  Histogram 
  ZoomRaster

Input related things may need further (high level) review.
None are complete implementations.
  Form
  Entry
  CheckButton
  InputWidget

Classes needing review that are related to incomplete analysis 
of Java layout manager behavior.
  Canvas
  CanvasItem
  CompositeItem
  LinkItem
  NodeItem
  OvalNodeItem
  RectangleNodeItem
  TextItem

Classes not implemented, or classes that are not improved from Tk version.
  ArchivedGeometry
  Circle
  ClassDisplayHideButton
  ClassDisplayLabel
  CompleteProbeDisplayLabel
  Label
  Line
  MessageProbeEntry
  ProbeCanvas
  Rectangle
  SimpleProbeDisplayHideButton
  SuperButton
  VarProbeEntry
  VarProbeLabel
  Pixmap


 III. Swarm version 1.0.5

Swarm version 1.0.5 is primarily a stabilization release prior to 
integrating the Java front-end.  It is now available to download from our 
website: http://www.santafe.edu/projects/swarm/release.html.  We recommend that
developers use version 1.0.4 unless they have uncovered bugs fixed by 1.0.5.

  IV. Swarmfest '98

Swarmfest '98 will be held on March 23 and 24th with a reception planned for
the evening of March 22nd.  Tutorial sessions will take place on Sunday.
The registration fee will be $100 for students, $150 for academics, and 
$200 for corporate registrants.  We will be offering one tutorial session: 
an Introduction to Swarm taught by Benedikt Stefansson of UCLA.  The tutorial 
session will cost $50. A registration form for the conference and the tutorial
session will be posted to the swarm-announce list.

   V. The Annual Swarm Survey T-shirt Drawing

Thank you for your responses to the Annual Swarm Survey.  Due to a problem 
with the Mail server at NET-Community, a number of the surveys did not get to
their addressees thus we had to postpone the drawing by a week. The random 
selection of 10 lucky respondents to win free Swarm t-shirts took place on 
Sunday, January 25th 1998 during half-time of the Superbowl.

The winners are:
    Jos Dassen
    Matteo Bellomo
    Birrell Walsh
    Stephen Gundry
    Philippe Laval
    Leland Pierce
    Dan Joyce
    Andrew Sherlock
    Brian Ruth
    Pia Koskenoja

We will be contacting you by email to get your current mailing address.
Congratulations and thank you for filling out the survey!!!
 
   VI. The Swarm Advisory Board

For the past few months, the Swarm team based at SFI has been exploring
the formation of a non-profit organization to coordinate Swarm development.
We were calling this group the Swarm Development Group (SDG).
Partly because of legal complications that surfaced as we pursued a formal
incorporation, we have decided not to take the step of forming a separate
legal entity at this time.  Both SFI and the rest of the Swarm team,
however, recognize the need to establish a new, longer term structure for
management and direction of the overall Swarm effort.  To that end, the
Swarm developers, in cooperation with SFI and Swarm developers at other
sites, are forming a Swarm Advisory Board to coordinate the development
and use of Swarm across its distributed user community.  Even though
it won't yet be a legally incorporated entity, we see this group filling
the same roles of speaking for the Swarm community and coordinating the
contents of the Swarm release that we had earlier intended for the
Swarm Development Group.

SFI is planning to work with the Swarm Advisory Board to provide input and 
direction for the restructured Swarm development program that continues at SFI.
The Swarm Advisory Board is to consist of original Swarm developers who remain
involved with the Swarm development program at SFI, along with representatives 
of major Swarm development and user sites, including SFI itself.  An initial
core group of Swarm developers and SFI representatives is being organized to
establish an initial membership of the board.

The major purpose of the board is to coordinate the growth of Swarm across
its entire user community.  Swarm has already grown beyond the bounds of
SFI itself, with most of its users and an increasing amount of development
occurring outside SFI.  SFI recognizes that the growth track of Swarm may
eventually take the core development and support of Swarm beyond a level
that is appropriately housed within SFI.  SFI has asked to work with this
board to help make decisions on behalf of the entire community of Swarm
developers and users.  This includes the possible incubation of new
development and support organizations that might eventually take over
activities currently performed at SFI.

Part of the responsibility of the board is to identify the sources and
responsibilities for software that will be integrated into formal Swarm
releases.  Besides content issues, the board is also be expected to help
plan the wider promotion of Swarm, to identify priorities of different
user communities, and to coordinate planning of SwarmFest and other user
community events.

Roger Burkhart

                              =========
The Swarm Pheromone is created by the members of the Swarm project at
the Santa Fe Institute.  For more information on the Swarm Project,
see http://www.santafe.edu/projects/swarm.  Comments, corrections, and
contributions should be sent to address@hidden




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                  ==================================
   Swarm-Support is for discussion of the technical details of the day
   to day usage of Swarm.  For list administration needs (esp.
   [un]subscribing), please send a message to <address@hidden>
   with "help" in the body of the message.
                  ==================================