wasm-agent-based-models

Reliable and efficient agent-based models in Rust and WebAssembly

Copyright (C) 2020 Fabio Correa [email protected]

https://github.com/facorread/wasm-agent-based-models

https://gitlab.com/facorread/wasm-agent-based-models

Introduction

Please check out the README for rust-agent-based-models first.

Agent-based models (ABM) are computer programs that define agents, virtual entities that imitate the decision-making processes and interactions of real people, animals, neurons, etc. [wasm-agent-based-models] is an interactive version of rust-agent-based-models that runs in a web browser. The researcher can copy code from one project into the other to explore model behavior. While rust-agent-based-models explores multiple, independent runs of the model under a wide range of parameter scenarios automatically, wasm-agent-based-models visualizes one run of the model while the researcher freely varies parameters, pauses the model, and explores alternative behavior using interactive controls.

Why WebAssembly?

Rust offers a range of tools to develop graphical user interfaces (GUIs); in 2020, these projects were still experimental, but I needed stable tools for a modeling GUI. I decided to use WebAssembly because it has a longer track record and it is an open standard available on Windows, Linux, and Mac systems.

Getting started

To get started with wasm-agent-based models, decent knowledge of html, css, and javascript is required. You should also read the Rust and WebAssembly book, and follow the setup instructions therein. npm is strongly recommended.

After you have started with rust-agent-based-models, [Clone this repository] (https://github.com/facorread/wasm-agent-based-models.git) and use your favorite terminal to run wasm-pack build --target web. Follow the instructions on screen.

Once you have verified that the code builds, take some time to understand the similarities and differences between this project and rust-agent-based-models. This allows you to see the code that needs to be copied from one project into the other, and decide what parameters you want to explore as you work on designing your own ABM.

To examine the differences between the two programs, you can use [diff], for example:

diff -u rust-agent-based-models/src/main.rs wasm-agent-based-models/src/lib.rs

To examine the similarities between the two programs, you can use [fgrep]:

fgrep -xf rust-agent-based-models/src/main.rs wasm-agent-based-models/src/lib.rs

Why make these two separate projects? / Do I need to copy code from one project into the other verbatim?

Sometimes you want to copy the full model from one project to another, and sometimes you want to explore changes to just one of the concepts or algorithms. These projects are complementary rather than redundant.

Does this repository use unsafe code?

Not explicitly.

Acknowledgements

This project was created using the wasm-pack-template template by the rust-wasm team.

The www/ directory comes from the create-wasm-app template by Ashley Williams of the rust-wasm team.