First we started an effort in getting some variables defined, how many members and businesses we want to have at start, how many quids they should get initially credited, etc.

The design is built on a core objects package, which we plan to be able to re-use for the production application, and a simulation package. We work with the concept of a policy, which implements the tweaking parameters of the quids management, and of a scenario, which is meant to provide an abstraction of the economic environment in which the LQN is running.

The simulation is now executable. We have a simple policy and a simple scenario for now (which are not that simple neither, but are meant as stepping stones for iterative development). However, for meaningful results, the simulation needs to get more details, essentially more feedbacks and behavioural modeling of members and businesses.

We would still be very happy to welcome python developers, as the code base expands and complexity increases. Knowledge of SimPy would be also most welcomed. All code is open source, and we host the master branch on github.com. This is the clone URL.

Stephen has done some work in investigating tools for the improvement of code quality. Thanks to these efforts, we are setting up virtual environments for the simulation; this makes it easy to replicate development on any machine, and reduces dependency complexity and management. We use the virtualenv tool for this.

Also, we are setting up testing infrastructure. In fact, we aim at a high coverage of tests for the functions the code is supposed to do. Of course, for anyone in software development, that means improvement of code stability and quality while facilitating integration, especially when multiple programmers work together (and, like here, not co-located). We think we’ll use nose as a python tool for continuous automated testing.

As a next step, we’ll implement some first core objects. As we favor agile development, we strive to include the user in shaping those core objects. For now, members of the non-technical stream of the project will take the role of the user.

We are quite excited as things now move on.

We have had intensive discussions among this group and those involved with strategy and working with potential adoptors and have come up with an interim plan for development.  Here is a summary of the plan so far:

1. We adapt an existing first go at a simulation by Fabio Barone to produce a robust set of well tested software modules that will form a core of the Liquidity Network for now.  We will try to ensure that as much of these can quickly be used in a production environment.
2. We post this software with a Open Source licence in a repository.  Currently this repository can be found on GitHub here.
3. We will encourage other interested developers to become part of the team.  If you are one please email us at info __ at __ feasta d-o-t org (email adress altered to prevent spam).

Granted, simulations are a tricky thing. They can never cover the whole complexity of a complex system – like the economy. For us though, the simulation is not a means for academic exercise or to model as close as possible reality. It would serve the purpose of getting a feeling of the dynamics of such a system and to get a communication vehicle.

Of course, we could easily set up a 3 years monster project to apply the best methodology, consult relevant information and implement a thoroughly elucidated theoretical foundation into simulation software. However, we don’t think we have this time.

We focus on getting a compromise between speed of implementation and sufficiently significant modeling, allowing us to spot trends and tendencies in the system.

Ideally this would provide us with information on how to parameterise the system, to eliminate any obvious fallacies and to feedback into the theoretical framework.

We are currently validating assumptions for the simulation, which we want to setup as an agent based system. On the feasta website, there is a thread discussing the assumptions for the simulation.