[PRE REVIEW]: Virtual Bumblebees

[whedon]

Submitting author: @howardjp (James P. Howard, II) Repository: https://github.com/howardjp/bumblebees Version: 1.1 Editor: @arfon Reviewer: @pjotrp

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[arfon]

Hi @howardjp. It's not entirely clear what this submission is? Could you tell me a little more about the research application of this work?

[howardjp]

That's a good question, @arfon. The environment is an implementation of a specific cellular automata ruleset. This is artifical life. In particular, it is a variant of the Langton Ant (see, e.g., Gajardo, Moreira, and Goles, 2002). In addition, one could implement the Langton Ant within Virtual Bumblebees through careful construction of a starting grid.

Here's a copy of the presentation I gave at MathFest 2015. Be warned, it is 160M due to embedded videos.

[howardjp]

@arfon I wanted to jump in and see if this had completely stalled or if I could help rekickstart it somehow?

[arfon]

@arfon I wanted to jump in and see if this had completely stalled or if I could help rekickstart it somehow?

Apologies for dropping the ball @howardjp. I'm struggling to figure out who might be a suitable editor for this submission.

@openjournals/joss-editors - anyone willing to volunteer to edit this submission?

[howardjp]

It's all good and we've all been there. Just wanted to see if I could give it a nudge. Totally unrelated, @arfon, but I spoke with one of your colleagues at NerdNite Baltimore last week. It's a small world.

[pjotrp]

It is a nifty visualisation. I.e., pretty cool. I do, however, think that this submission is going to stretch our scientific application rule. @howardjp unlike the papers you refer to you don't give an explanation of what you actually have implemented and how it differs from the ant? I think that would be incredibly helpful. Your code is short and concise, but not exactly explanatory.

Also can you run through the list of checkboxes of another submission, such as https://github.com/openjournals/joss-reviews/issues/248 and see if we can actually tick the boxes.

Finally, do consider that your your scientific credibility is attached to your submission and may be visible for eternity ;)

[howardjp]

@pjotrp I think a lot of the checkboxes can be ticked with better documentation, so I will work on that and ping you again in a few days.

As for scientific credibility, in a field that only progresses when someone has made a mistake, it is important not to take oneself too seriously ;)

[pjotrp]

@whedon commands

[whedon]

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[pjotrp]

@whedon assign @pjotrp as editor (there was a typo)

[pjotrp]

@whedon assign @pjotrp as editor

[whedon]

OK, the editor is @pjotrp

[howardjp]

@pjotrp Okay, I added a README.md file to the develop branch. This adds a lot of context and explanation for

1. Why I created this,
2. How to use it, and
3. How it works.

Of questions on this checklist, this will resolve almost all of them. Some really don't apply (API documentation, though I do describe the internals, which can be helpful to someone wanting to make changes). So with this in mind, please take another look and I can take another stab at getting it up to snuff.

Thanks! James

[pjotrp]

Great. I started looking for a reviewer.

[pjotrp]

@howardjp do you have a mailing list you belong to for people with similar interests? I could put a call for review there.

[howardjp]

Hi, sorry for my own delay. The final week of class is dense, to say the least. As it is, not really. My education is in public policy. I literally wrote Bumblebees as a one-off while sitting at my son's chess tournament, as I described in a blog post, based on something I was messing with 20-odd years ago. I just wanted someone else to find it and do something interesting with it. :)

[arfon]

@whedon assign @arfon as editor

[whedon]

OK, the editor is @arfon

[arfon]

@whedon assign @pjotrp as reviewer

[whedon]

OK, the reviewer is @pjotrp

[arfon]

@whedon start review magic-word=bananas

[whedon]

OK, I've started the review over in https://github.com/openjournals/joss-reviews/issues/256. Feel free to close this issue now!