Tutorial

Lars-Erik Cederman Document created: May 17, 2001 Laszlo Gulyas Latest revision: May 21, 2001 Tutorial Sequence for RePast: An Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma Game This document describes a tutorial sequence for beginners, developed for the software package RePast (see http://repast.sourceforge.net). Featuring five stages, the tutorial implements the core functionality of Cohen, Riolo and Axelrod (1999)’s modeling framework, which is based on an iterated prisoner’s dilemma game. This modeling framework has the advantage of referring to a well-known modeling problem with obvious interest to most social scientists. Moreover, Cohen et al. explore a large number of modeling dimensions that can serve as the basis for exercises going beyond the tutorial itself. Since the tutorial builds directly on the Cohen et al. model, it is useful to consult the paper before turning to the tutorial it self. The tutorial’s stage-based logic allows for successive introduction of RePast features. The last phase includes all main ingredients of a basic RePast model, including random numbers, graphs and displays, as well as methods for batch runs. It is assumed that the user already masters basic Java. For those who want to read up on Java, Schildt (2001) and Eckel (1998) can be recommended for beginner’s and more experienced programmers respectively. The tutorial is limited to RePast’s core functions. Thus, more advanced features, such as custom actions and ...