Learning how to use Cormas

Smalltalk tutorials

Before to start with Cormas, you have to become familiar with Smalltalk and VisualWorks.

• The Application Developer's Guide that explains the principles of Smalltalk: AppDevGuide.pdf
• The Basic Libraries Guide that presents the core classes (Number, Collection, ...): BasicLibraries.pdf
• The guide for developing GUI (Graphic User Interfaces): GUIDevGuide.pdf

Some video tutorials are available online from the Cincom website:
Some books on Smalltalk are available on Stéphane Ducasse web page.

Cormas tutorials

The best way to learn how to use Cormas is to start by looking at some existing models, to become familiar with the main graphical user interfaces. The Game of Life proposed by John Conway, a very simple but yet fascinating cellular automata, has been implemented with Cormas. You will learn how to load it, look at the code and run simulations. Several examples are proposed here: FireAgent model (a typical Cormas model), and StupidModel (a benchmark model to allow comparison with other popular agent-based simulation platforms). ECEC is a complete tutorial starting from a full UML description until implementation and analysis. Before to start the tutorials, be sure that Cormas is properly installed on your computer (see detailed instructions here).

Tutorial 1 : Game of Life (Conway)
In this example you will not just learn how to open an existing model but also how to perform simulation of the model.
Tutorial 2 : FireAgent Model Download the .zip files (password = "bonjour") to work offline
The aim of this model, to be built step by step, is to simulate fire diffusion in a forest with fire agents trying to extinguish the fire.
Tutorial 3 : StupidModel Download the .zip files (password = "bonjour") to work offline
This model has been used as a benchmark model to compare existing agent-based simulation platforms.
Tutorial 4 : ECEC (PDF)
The aim of this tutorial is to design and to implement, step by step, a model of competition between two populations of foragers.
Tutorial 5 : GUI (GoogleDoc)
This tutorial helps to design and implement GUI (Grafic User Interfaces) for Cormas.

Other tutorials

Video to learn how to use the Activity Diagram Editor: these videos have been made by using the Diffuse model:

• Video 1
• Video 2