I’m embarrassed to say, I haven’t looked at Bob’s longterm (that’s nalongterm) development recently. Now I have the screen capture software, I decided to give it a try for the first time.
Apr 072012
Based on the number of new users and the lack of documentation, I’m going to start recording YouTube clips of the development to bring new folk up to speed. Here is the first.
Apr 012012
One of the topics I discussed with Bob Mottram a few weeks ago was the constant recruiting needs of Noble Ape. Aside from the rich cognitive simulation aspects of Noble Ape there is a constant need for folks wanting to test aspects of the simulation and provide meaningful data. Bob and I try our best however the need for data in particular is non-trivial as it adds to the short-term development of various elements of the simulation and also long-term periodic academic writing.
We currently have half a dozen new contributors of different levels and interests but the need is always there. Here is the generic post on SourceForge, I am updating each month.
If you are interested, please:
1. Get the source code from SVN:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/nobleape/develop
2. Join the Noble Ape Developer Mailing List:
http://mail.nobleape.com/mailman/listinfo/developer_nobleape.com
3. Email me an introduction directly (this will also indicate that I need to add you to the developer mailing list):
tom at nobleape dot com
Fifteen year old open source artificial life project:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_Ape
Looking for general developers on any of the platforms the simulation is currently offered (Linux, Windows, Mac, iPad, command line, web server etc). Any interested developers should explore the code-base and get a sense of the task required. The core code is written in C however additional languages could be used if need-be.
Substantial contributions to the core development would also be encouraged. Experience with multiple platforms would be highly desired.
Additional project information:
If you find this now, in a few months or a few years, the offer will still be open!
Mar 112012
I periodically get asked how to build the Noble Ape Simulation for Windows. Thankfully Microsoft now provides pretty snappy free compiler. I’m going to use a Google link to find it to avoid the link being connected with a particular dated version.
You’ll need a copy of the simulation source. I’d recommend getting the latest tar ball.
And you will need something to extract the tar ball. I use 7Zip although there are many other programs. Once you have it decompressed, I recorded a YouTube video about the final step.
Enjoy!
Feb 082012
Many thanks to Bob Mottram for breathing some life into this old blog. With Bob adding so much code to the Noble Ape Simulation in the past couple of years, I often wonder how to track some of these changes.
Back in the Original Manuals (circa 1997), I wrote about a command line version of the Simulation where aspects of the Simulation could be interrogated in real-time. In fact, where every aspect of the Simulation could be tracked.
Although the Simulation had some components, it was nothing like as complicated as the current development version of Noble Ape. It occurred to me today that I need to write a command line version of the Simulation that actually allows you to track various aspects of the Simulation in real time.
The public face of the underlying elements in the Simulation has always been the file format. I am hoping to use the file format as the data tracking core of the command line version with some additions to allow stepping through the Simulation and potentially the ability to add wait conditions for certain variables to reach particular values.
I probably should be programming rather than writing a blog entry but I wanted to put the idea out there.
Thanks again to Bob for all the work he is doing with Noble Ape. More on some of the work I am coin with Noble Ape shortly.