What parameters to launch GAMA 2 ?

[RoiArthurB]

GAMA 2.0 is announced and will change the way GAMA can be launched (with a more modular and flexible architecture). This flexibility will allow launching different kind of GAMA, mostly controlled by some flags in the start.

I'm then asking here to the community : What parameter seems to be the more important to precise when you'll launch GAMA 2.0?

To give you some example, a flag server to work with a headless version of GAMA could be an answer. In a different approach, a flag presentation launching one simulation right away.

[RoiArthurB]

Ping developers @gama-platform/core @gama-platform/committers 🤗🤗🤗

[ndgnuh]

I think this relates more to how the user uses Gama, won't it be more appropriate to ask on user places (e.g. Gama Day slack?)

[AlexisDrogoul]

It is true to a certain extent. Advanced users will use this functionality, and they are quite well represented among the developers...

[RoiArthurB]

@ndgnuh Good idea, feel free to send the link on the GAMA Days Slack (I lost the link) 😉

[AlexisDrogoul]

Hi, maybe we should begin to list the various options existing for both the headless and the UI version of GAMA (https://gama-platform.github.io/wiki/Launching#launching-the-application-from-the-command-line) ? In UI, we have :

1. The direct use of a model file : launch GAMA and opens an editor on it.
2. The use of a model file + # + experiment name to launch directly an experiment
3. The use of -D+ a preference name or a flag name (https://github.com/gama-platform/gama/blob/GAMA_1.8.2/ummisco.gama.annotations/src/ummisco/gama/dev/utils/FLAGS.java) to set its new value
4. Some things are also supposed to work, but I guess they do not really, like -clean to clean the metadata at launch or '-data' to specify a workspace.

The goal is to have a unified way of launching GAMA from the command line (or a config file, or another language, like R), simple enough for beginners but with enough options to satisfy the geeks and external tooling.

A second use would be to embed these parameters in the GAML files directly, in the form of pragmas or in experiments, so that model files can be self contained; ie when you launch one using the command above (gama + filename + experiment), GAMA will look for directives on what to do with it: launch it, set some preferences, use x cores, etc... whatever.

[AlexisDrogoul]

In any case, I am strongly in favour of using a tool like https://picocli.info for managing these options, producing the documentation, etc.