Inconsistent naming "M" and "mitigate", nested and flat, struct and Dict

[fonsp]

The package has lots of concepts that are 'per technology': M,R,G,A, but their syntax is inconsistent:

Naming

Sometimes we have M, R, G, A, sometimes mitigate, remove, geoeng (abbreviated), adapt

Nested and flat

Sometimes we have nested properties: climate_model.controls containing climate_model.controls.M, climate_model.controls.R, etc.,

and sometimes it is a flat structure: climate_model.economics.mitigate_cost, climate_model.economics.remove_cost, etc.

Struct and Dict

For nested structures, sometimes we use a struct: climate_model.controls.M

and sometimes we use a Dict: optimize_controls!(m; max_slope=Dict("mitigate" => ...)

[fonsp]

Proposal 1

We choose a favorite for each category, and use it everywhere

Proposal 2

We create a new type, which is a container per technology:

Base.@kwdef mutable struct MRGA{T}
    M::T
    R::T
    G::T
    A::T
end

Example use in code

max_slope = MRGA(1/40, 1/40, 1/80/ 0.0)

asdf = max_slope.M > 0.0

# Base.@kwdef means that you can also use keyword arguments:
enabled = MRGA(M=true, R=true, G=false, A=false)

controls = MRGA(
    [0.5, 0.3, ...], 
    zeros(20), 
    zeros(20), 
    zeros(20)
)

controls.R .= 0.1

Example use inside the package code

function optimize_controls!(
    m::ClimateModel;
    ...
    max_slope::MRGA{Float64} = MRGA(1/40, 1/40, 1/80/ 0.0)
    ...
)

# MRGA is a parametric type (MRGA{T}), which means that you can still enforce a type for its fields:
mutable struct Economics
    ...
    cost::MRGA{Float64}
    ...
end

mutable struct ClimateModel
    ...
    controls::MRGA{Vector{Real}}
    ...
end

We can add some convenience methods like:

MRGA(x) = MRGA(x,x,x,x)

[fonsp]

With proposal 2, we can also add a convenience method for iteration. This is maybe more of a "coolness" factor, because compactness is not always clarity, it's up to you:

# we implement two Base methods:
Base.iterate(container::MRGA) = ... something
Base.get(container::MRGA, technology::String) = ... something

# so that you can do
for (technology, value) in MRGA(true, false, false, false)
    if technology == "R"
       @test value == something_else[technology]
   end
end

something_else = MRGA(false, false, false, false)

One example of something I was writing today, in the current syntax (top), and the proposed syntax (bottom): screenshot.

[hdrake]

Yeah, I think the proposed syntax is better. MRGA is fine for now, but consistent with https://github.com/ClimateMARGO/ClimateMARGO.jl/issues/44 we will probably want a general "Controls" type, with MRGA being the default subtype used in margo. I imagine some users will want to define some additional or different controls.

[fonsp]

Right! I'll think about it more closely, but my first guess would be that we could do:

abstract type PerControl{T} end

mutable struct MRGA{T} <: PerControl{T}
    M::T
    R::T
    G::T
    A::T
end

and then ideally, by using PerControl in our code instead of MRGA, we write code that is general enough to be extended with a fifth control type.