Game of Life

Posted by Nico Golde in software
Sunday, January 1. 2006

During the congress AK told me about the Game of Life
which imho is pretty interresting and makes alot of fun to watch the shapes that will arise in such a cellular automate.

A friend of him implemented a very complex software to do such simmulations in which you can create your own rules etc.
But the basic rules are just that the bit (animal or whatever) will die if less than 2 bits are in the environment because of lonelyness, more than 3 bits because of crowding
and a dead bit will come to life if exactly 3 bits are in the environment.
What I didn't know and I think most of the people don't know is that the famous hacker emblem

is a so-called glider which is just one example of a form of life which can be simulated in the game of life. The glider is special because of its
construction it will glide from one corner to the other.

So here is my small implementation for the glider (you have to edit source if you want to see something else):
http://nion.modprobe.de/gameoflife.c

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Hey Nico

You surely know about xlife, don't you? There, you can also adjust rules, speed, size and can even fill the whole "game field" with random bits. Sad though, that all the "civilizations" after some time don't develop any more...

#1 Julius Plenz (Homepage) on 2006-01-02 05:42 (Reply)

Yes, I know xlife, I also played with Evocell and zivoth before implementing my version. And I know that xlife sucks

It implements this simple functionality and some X handling in over 8000 SLOC. Thats more than my window manager nees

But thats not the topic, sure my program sucks compared with xlife, the civilization is hardcoded...
But it was just fun to try to implement it (after doing it is very easy

And no its wrong that "all the "civilizations" after some time don't develop any more..."

The glider for example develops in an endless loop. Or even 3 bits in a line will do.

#2 nion (Homepage) on 2006-01-02 11:56 (Reply)

Okay, maybe you're right. Usually I look at a program's functionality and whether it does what I want it to to, not at the number of SLOC. But anyway...

To get to the development part: Of course, there are certain structures that flicker back and forth (your three-cell-in-a-row, for example) and some elements that continuously move around the field (your glider, for example). But as soon as a glider runs into another (flickering) structure, it develops to something else. And as soon as there are no other "civilizations" thatn these flickering structures I'd consider the development as "dead".

I as well just played with it a little bit and these are my observations. I have never fully read that wikipedia article and thus don't know how there is referred to certain phenomens...

#2.1 Julius Plenz (Homepage) on 2006-01-02 18:41 (Reply)

@SLOC && FUNCTIONALITY I look at both.
apart from my glider there are also other well known examples for multiple forms which will not die

#3 nion (Homepage) on 2006-01-02 19:42 (Reply)

I know that there are certain constructs that won't die. My point is something different: they always make the same development again, they don't influence other structures or cells. They are flickering between their two or three states. I don't think that is real development.

#3.1 Julius Plenz (Homepage) on 2006-01-02 20:25 (Reply)

Ah ok, no thats not real development BUT have a look at evocell. It allows to define more complex rules so you can simulate real cell division for example.

#4 nion (Homepage) on 2006-01-02 20:32 (Reply)

I suggest using SDL for such simulations. It's also impressive if you use more than two states to get colorful traces. Ant simulations are also easy to code and nice to look at.

#5 Anonymous on 2006-01-12 00:17 (Reply)

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