This source code documentation is a guide for users and developers of the megafauna library. Before you continue, make sure you have read the README.md in the root of this repository in order to gain a general overview.
This documentation contains auto-generated source code documentation and in addition a few pages that generally describe the model and the source code architecture. You can find all of these manually written pages under “Related Pages” in the upper navigation bar.
A good first read for users and developers is the Ecological Model Discussion.
Throughout this documentation you will find diagrams in UML (Unified Modeling Language), mostly class diagrams. If you are not familiar with UML at all, consider looking at one of the many introductions you can find online.
Contributing
If you are considering to contribute to the source code, make yourself familiar with the Software Design as well as the Object-oriented Design Concepts. Please observe the Open-closed Principle wherever possible: Only change a class if necessary. Try to extend it instead or—even better—write a new class with your functionality. In Tutor you might find already a step-by-step instruction for your use case. In CONTRIBUTING.md you will find all the details about what your code should look like and how you can commit your changes to the repository.
Please keep the documentation pages Software Design and Ecological Model Discussion updated. The UML diagrams are rendered by PlantUML and collected all in one file: docs/diagrams.iuml. You will find references for the PlantUML syntax on http://www.plantuml.com.
Come into the practice of test-driven development. Write a test for each one of your new classes! Check all of its public methods and see what example test scenarios it has to fulfill. Also check if exceptions are thrown correctly.
A scientifically important paradigm of this library is that no parameters are hard-coded. Any biologically relevant parameter value is subject to uncertainty. In order to be included in a sensitivity/uncertainty analysis, the parameter must be in the instruction file.
Integration into a Vegetation Model
If you want to introduce the megafauna library to a vegetation model, you should study the code of the demo simulator (tools/demo_simulator) and its documentation on the page Demo Simulator.
Since the MMM is licensed under the LGPLv3 (or later), you can use it in differently licensed (even proprietary) vegetation models, as long as you …
- give prominent notice about the megafauna library and its license,
- attach the LGPL license, and
- convey the library source code.
But see the LGPL § 4 for all the legal details on “Combined Work.”
- Copyright
This software documentation is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
- Date
- 2019
