Status Update

I haven't posted for a while, so I just wanted to provide an update on the status and (hopeful) direction of my various PLaneT packages. This post will cover the science, simulation, and inference collections, which work together to provide a knowledge-based simulation capability.

We at SET Corporation are using the science, simulation, and inference collections as part of our Multi-Agent, Dynamic NEtwork Simulation System (MADNESS). The inference collection is also used in our COntent GENeration from Templates (COGENT) system. These are used on a daily basis in our agent-based simulation work.

Science Collection

The current release of the science collection is version 3.10. I only expect to do bug fixes to the version 3 code. The next release should be version 4.0. For version 4.0 I plan to convert the code to Typed Racket, which has gotten to the point that typed code generally runs as fast or faster than my hand-optimized numeric code.

The only major new functionality planned for version 4.0 are fast Fourier transforms. This code is already written and ready for release, but the documentation has not been updated. Vincent St-Amour at Northeastern University converted the FFT code to Typed Racket to test the optimized code generation for numeric processing. The results were extremely impressive and I need to make a separate post on this.

Simulation Collection

The current version of the simulation collection is version 3.4. I only expect to do bug fixes to the version 3 code. At some point I will release a version 4.0, which may (or may not) be in Typed Racket. The decision to use Typed Racket will be based on my experience in converting the science collection. I will also rewrite the simulation language using syntax-parse to provide better syntax error handling.

Inference Collection

The current version of the inference collection is version 2.7. There was a flurry of releases earlier this year as we really began to use the inference collection in MADNESS and COGENT. Unfortunately, the documentation has not yet caught up with the code changes.

I made earlier posts on the upcoming version 3 rewrite. As with the simulation collection, this may (or may not) be in Typed Scheme. I will definitely use syntax-parse to implement a rule compiler for the rule language.