John Conway's Game of Life in D v1.0

[Jim Burnes]

Hey D People...

Here is my first significant effort in D: John Conway's Game of Life.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life)

It's not a graphics library or a first person shooter, but you may enjoy it.  Hopefully someone might be able to use this as a good example of a simple D program.  I've cleaned it up a little, but haven't spit-shined it if you know what I mean.

Here are the features:

- compiled with the latest 'gdc' available in Ubuntu 7.10.
- It uses ncurses for output for that "old school effect".  If you want to build and run it you'll need a copy of the 'bcd' C to D header converter.  Make sure you install his pre-converted headers for curses. (By the way, could someone update the website and make sure they reference 'bcd' as the new header converter.  I wasted a lot of time with the other one.)
- It loads its initial population from a file.  Format is <row>,<col> for each
  populated cell.  One data item per line.
- Upon startup, the initial population is displayed and you can edit it with 'vi' like keys.  Check the code for the useful keys. (spacebar to flip a cell on/off. vi movement keys to move.)
- Hit ENTER to start the sim.  To pause and edit the current population hit ENTER again.
- To single step the sim just press the space bar.  Any other key will advance to the next gen. Spacebar again leaves step mode.
- ESC will exit the sim from run state or edit state.
- It auto adapts its data structures at startup to fit your console size.
- It's only about 9k of source code.

Okay, that's it.  If you are amused or pissed off just send me an email 8-)

I'm sure you'll identify some code that I could have done using more appropriate D idioms (like the nested for loops could be foreach).

If you can think of improvements, please feel free to send them in and if they make sense I send an update.

I know it's a toy and doesn't include any generic programming or templating examples, but hey its a start and kind of fun.

Next I want to do an AI neuroevolver so I thought this would be appropriate ;-)

Regards,

Jim Burnes

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