Performance benchmarks:

@quaquel is it now best-practice that we need to pass random to everything? Can't all components that have access to a model instance just use self.model.random or such?

@quaquel is it now best-practice that we need to pass random to everything? Can't all components that have access to a model instance just use self.model.random or such?

That is already how it's done. CellCollection, and the spaces are not aware of the model, so they cannot fall back on it. In contrast, Agent has the model and so uses this. AgentSet also falls back on it via the model reference found in the first agent in the set.

While I get where the design originates from, I find this very confusing for end-users. Especially from the concept of guided learning with easy entry and gracefully learning more powerful features (@tpike3 how do you always call that?). Adding a space is often one of the first things people do, and now they get a warning and they have to dive into random number generators and which parts of spaces have access to what model design. That's all unneeded complexity introduced too early to

I get that we need the whole random passing from a reproducibility standpoint, and I acknowledge that may add some complexity here and there. I support adopting SPEC 7. But how can we make it so that the end-users doesn't encounter its complexity so early, but can gradually learn it?

We debated this before while developing both the discrete space and the new experimental continuous space.

From a learning perspective, I don't see the problem as long as the tutorials and examples always pass random=model.random/rng=model.rng, which provides a clear pattern for learners to follow.

From an implementation point of view, I also don't know of a simple solution, apart from trying to get model.random from the agent as per AgentSet, but this will add overhead via an if else or try catch and a property:

@properyt
def random:
    try:
        return getattr(self, "_random"
    except AttribtueError:
       # figure it out via agents

@quaquel code wise, is this good to go?