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Thanks! *But what if you provide Steppables at various times as they show up, and then they all get stepped? That's where shuffling is helpful -- it breaks the deterministic nature of the heap submission algorithm. That's all.* So keep it. :) And write in somewhere that setShuffling improves the disorder, since you can't ensure the heap is sorted... Maíra On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 6:33 AM, Sean Luke <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Uh oh, AFTER my email you were wondering? :-) > > Basically: the schedule works by advancing to the timestep of the > minimally-scheduled Steppable. It then removes all the Steppables which are > scheduled at that timestep. Then it sorts them by their "ordering", and > breaks ties by shuffling randomly. Then it goes through all those > Steppables, in the resultant order, and step()s them one by one. > > So what's the difference between having the Schedule shuffle elements > randomly and just using a RandomSequence? Simply this: in a RandomSequence > you submit all the Steppables at one time to the Schedule, all in one array. > But what if you provide Steppables at various times as they show up, and > then they all get stepped? That's where shuffling is helpful -- it breaks > the deterministic nature of the heap submission algorithm. That's all. > > Sean > > > On Oct 14, 2009, at 8:22 PM, Maíra Athanázio Gatti wrote: > > Hi Sean, >> >> I have never used setShuffling and after your email I was wondering what >> is the difference between it and a RamdonSequence. >> >> Maíra >> >> On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 2:48 PM, Sean Luke <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >> I added setShuffling because I was asked on this list to enable a way for >> elements entered for the same timestep to be removed from the Schedule in a >> predictable order (that is, no shuffling of those elements). However while >> the order is *predictable* it is by no means *expected* -- since the >> Schedule uses a binary heap underneath, it is *not* the case that elements >> will be stepped in the order in which they were inserted in the Schedule in >> the first place (though it is *sometimes* the case). Because of the high >> possibility for misunderstanding, and the very low value (I think) in having >> the feature, I'm thinking of deleting setShuffling entirely and requiring >> that objects be shuffled. >> >> Any opinions? >> >> Sean >> >> >>