Be compatible with Nengo examples

[tbekolay]

I've just copied the demos directory of Nengo to examples (which is a more standard naming) in the nef-py directory. We should see which of these can currently be run with the theano version. Check them off if you can confirm they work, and try to do some benchmarking with it (i.e., run it for x seconds, see how long each version takes)

• [x] 2drepresentation.py
• [x] addition.py
• [ ] armcontrol.py
• [x] basalganglia.py
• [x] combining.py
• [x] communication.py
• [x] controlledintegrator.py
• [x] controlledintegrator2.py
• [x] controlledoscillator.py
• [ ] convolve.py - dependent on nef.convolution file
• [x] integrator.py - quick flag removed
• [x] learn-communicate.py - removed gating, make_fourier_input, mode=direct,
• [x] learn-product.py - removed gating, make_fourier_input
• [x] learn-square.py - removed gating, make_fourier_input
• [x] manyneurons.py
• [x] matrix_multiplication.py
• [x] multiplication.py
• [x] oscillator.py
• [ ] question-control.py
• [ ] question-memory.py
• [ ] question.py
• [x] singleneuron.py
• [ ] spa_sequence.py
• [ ] spa_sequencerouted.py
• [x] squaring.py - but what is a storage_code? removed from make, now runs
• [x] twoneurons.py
• [ ] vehicle.py

[studywolf]

So I'm looking at these now; and, for example, in twoneurons.py there's a net.add_to_nengo() command. This is clearly not a command that we want in the theano code, and nef_theano is being imported as nef, so does it sound good to just remove this and replace with net.run(time) instead?

I would suggest doing this and then worrying about getting the exact same code running in both after we nail down the API we want at the code sprint...

Or we could have a check to see if we're in Nengo or theano code and then either do net.run or net.network.simulator.run(start, end, dt)...

[tbekolay]

Yeah, of course. I mean, you can do it locally, like you said, when we discuss the NEF API these will have to be changed anyhow, but for the purposes of just seeing what works and what doesn't, this issue is mainly just to see what things should work but don't. add_to_nengo obviously shouldn't.

[tcstewar]

net.run() should work in both Nengo and Theano -- that's a part of the API that I think we're happy with.

Interestingly, net.add_to_nengo() currently does nothing at all in the nengo-cl version. I could see an argument that if we changed it to net.add_to_ui() it could be a standard part of the API which does nothing if there's no gui, but if there is one (for Nengo or some hypothetical future HTML5 tablet UI), it would work.

[studywolf]

yup, I've just been removing the add to nengo command and replacing with net.run. And xuan is working on the benchmarking stuff to have things run between both so we can wait on that to do formal runtime / buildtime testing.

[studywolf]

So I've checked out these now, and the ones dependent on nps or other files out in the Nengo folder aren't running, and there's a learning class that I think we're just replacing with net.learn, right? Aside from that they all worked, matrix_multiplication picked up a bug in the make_encoders function for when a set of encoders are specified. I would think the next thing to do would be to port over the basal ganglia code (especially since I need it for my own code), and then check out the basalganglia test again.

[studywolf]

Oh and also there are several that don't run because they use Input with that format net.make_input('input',{0.2:5, 0.3:0, 0.44:-10, 0.54:0, 0.8:5, 0.9:0} that hasn't been implemented yet.

[tbekolay]

Yeah -- we'll talk about net.learn at the sprint, I don't think the current API is a very good way to do it, so we should brainstorm better ideas then.

[studywolf]

OK, I'm going to reimplement them by making an error population and calling net.learn for now.

[tbekolay]

Sounds good.

[studywolf]

OK, I think those are all the ones that I'm going to get working, the rest I believe will require more infrastructure to be built first, and the SPA ones I'm not going to touch.