RE: UrbanSim 3 vs. 4

Paul,
 
The reason we are planning to use our own SVN is because we don't have access to the public SVN server. I have developers updating code/databases in UrbanSim 4 on a daily basis, hence we need to integrate those changes with the official release and/or nightly build available as a tar ball.
 
We started with the June 30th Pre Release, we then moved to the significantly different September 29 nightly build that fixed the Bug for Lag Variables not being recorded and are now on to the October 24th Build with the changed Employment location model.
 
I fully appreciate that UrbanSim is an in development Open Source project but I need to get a running system up and going by mid November at the latest. My team is still struggling to get a sample base year with the models running.
 
My current plan is to get our SVN server to grab the nightly tar ball and update our SVN copy. We can then monitor and merge the changes from both our developers (currently 2, soon to be 4) and the UrbanSim developers. As I understand it a lot of changes are requiring SQL changes and changes to records (I will look at managing this through the SVN server as well).
We can then send our changes as a patch back to you via email or to the commons website.
 
Our intention is not to start our own branch we are just trying to find a workable and timely solution for our project. :-)

Aaran Stent
National Economics
aaran.stent_at_nieir.com.au <mailto:aaran.stent_at_nieir.com.au>
416 Queens Parade
Clifton Hill VIC 3068
Ph: 0419 227 262

-----Original Message-----
From: users-bounces_at_urbansim.org [mailto:users-bounces_at_urbansim.org]On
Behalf Of Paul Waddell
Sent: Monday, 30 October 2006 11:12 AM
To: Aaran Stent
Cc: 'users_at_urbansim.org'
Subject: Re: UrbanSim 3 vs. 4

I appreciate that new users of a system like to be able to download a
sample application and run it 'out of the box'. We are now working on
updating the Eugene application we provided with UrbanSim 3 so that new
users will have this same capacity to experiment with a running
application quickly after installing the system. We will send an
announcement to the list as soon as this is available, and will post it
in the News section on the web. Our efforts have been focused on making
UrbanSim 4 and OPUS a more robust and flexible system than we felt we
could do in the previous implementation, and I think we have made some
very significant advances. But we need to finish up the task of making
the system more accessible to new users, and will do so.

At the same time, we strongly encourage new users to start with the
UrbanSim 4 platform, and encourage both new and existing users to be
helpful in the process of refining the documentation and code by
pointing things out to the development team that need fixing, or better
yet, sending a correction or a patch. Help is always welcome, and the
most effective way to do this is to submit any suggested changes to
documentation or code to the development team for integration into the
release system, rather than offering separate patches or branches.

Paul

Aaran Stent wrote:
> Hi Jen,
>
> I think you have summarised the problem very well. Opus and UrbanSim 4 provide a great set of new features and will offer ongoing support. However the biggest issue with UrbanSim 4 is that it simply will not work out of the box like UrbanSim 3.
>
> I have had two developers working on UrbanSim 4 for several weeks now and they are yet to get the test database and all of the models in working order. When I first looked at UrbanSim in Feb 2006 I was able to have a running simulation that I could then experiment with in a single day.
>
> My developers have stated there are a lot of hard coded references to the University server causing a lot of things to break. There are also numerous differences in what the documentation states versus the source code. The team is stepping through correcting a lot of code instead of working on models and scenarios. We are planning to share our changes via our SVN server once we have a working model running.
>
> The Java version is your best option in my honest opinion. It provides a working system in just a few hours. UrbanSim 4 will not.
>
> PS. I don't mean to come down hard on UrbanSim 4 as it is such a huge step forward from version 3, it simply isn't ready for widespread use like UrbanSim 3 is.
>
> Aaran Stent
> National Economics
> aaran.stent_at_nieir.com.au <mailto:aaran.stent_at_nieir.com.au>
> 416 Queens Parade
> Clifton Hill VIC 3068
> Ph: 0419 227 262
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: users-bounces_at_urbansim.org [mailto:users-bounces_at_urbansim.org]On
> Behalf Of Jennifer C. Duthie
> Sent: Saturday, 28 October 2006 1:44 AM
> To: users_at_urbansim.org
> Subject: UrbanSim 3 vs. 4
>
>
> Hi,
>
> I'm working on a research project for TxDOT looking at what type of land
> use model is best for each type of region (defined by size, resources,
> need, ...) depending on a variety of factors. I had been trying to get
> UrbanSim 4 running for awhile and was having some of the same problems
> as Zachary, so I just this week switched to UrbanSim 3.
> Although there are many advantages to UrbanSim 4 (as listed
> http://www.urbansim.org/news/index.shtml#opus), we're worried that there
> are still some bugs in the code and the documentation has not yet been
> ironed out. Also, it is very helpful to have the Eugene test database
> running for the earlier version. As we're looking for general
> conclusions about types of models, we feel this should suffice. My only
> concern is that the Java version is no longer being maintained, so if we
> do have a problem it may be more difficult to get it resolved.
>
> I just wanted to see if anyone on this list had any convincing arguments
> as to why we shouldn't use the Java version for our research...
>
> Thanks!
> Jen Duthie
> PhD Candidate
> Transportation Engineering
> University of Texas, Austin
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>
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Received on Sun Oct 29 2006 - 18:59:48 PST