Empirical is a library of tools for developing useful, efficient, reliable, and available scientific software. The provided code is header-only and encapsulated into the emp namespace, so it is simple to incorporate into existing projects.
See our Built With Empirical Gallery for examples of web tools built with Empirical.
See our Quick Start Guides to start using the library.
Starting out on a new project that will use Empirical? Take a look at the cookiecutter Empirical project template for automatically setting up a directory structure with all the files you need to get started -- step-by-step instructions included!
Tools in Empirical include:
- Web-enabled elements to facilitate compiling to JavaScript and with a full web interfaces, using Mozilla's Emscripten compiler (from C++ to high-efficiency JavaScript).
- Debug tools to facilitate audited memory management; these tools are turned off outside of debug mode allowing the full speed of raw pointers and normal standard library components.
- A wide range of Helper tools to streamline common scientific computing tasks such as configuration, data management, mathematical manipulations, etc. All of these are designed to be easy-to-use and efficient.
- A powerful set of evolution tools for building Artificial Life or Evolutionary Computation software.
- A signal-action system that allows for efficient customization of tools, and flexible software that can easily facilitate plug-in functionality.
See https://empirical.readthedocs.io/en/latest for more detailed documentation on the available source files.
If Empirical contributes to a scientific publication, please cite it as
Vostinar, A., Lalejini, A., Ofria, C., Dolson, E., & Moreno, M.A. (2024). Empirical: A scientific software library for research, education, and public engagement. Journal of Open Source Software, 9(98), 6617, https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.06617
@article{devosoft2024empirical,
year = {2024},
publisher = {The Open Journal},
author = {Vostinar, Anya and Lalejini, Alexander and Ofria, Charles and Dolson, Emily and Moreno, Matthew Andres},
title = {Empirical: A scientific software library for research, education, and public engagement},
journal = {Journal of Open Source Software},
volume = {9},
number = {98},
pages = {6617},
doi = {10.21105/joss.06617},
url = {https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.06617},
}Please cite phylogeny tracking tools separately as shown here. And don't forget to leave a star on GitHub!
| Folder | Description |
|---|---|
| demos/ | examples of mini projects using Empirical |
| doc/ | Documentation files (including for auto generation of docs) |
| examples/ | Example code for many of the above tools (sub-directory structure parallels source/) |
| include/ | Header files that make up the Empirical library (see below for details) |
| Planning/ | Scattered notes about future development (most notes found in GitHub issue tracker) |
| tests/ | Unit tests |
| third-party/ | Non-empirical dependencies |
| Sub-Folder | Description |
|---|---|
| base/ | Debug tools used throughout Empirical for fast and efficient memory management |
| bits/ | Tools for conveniently and efficiently working with bit representations |
| config/ | Tools to build a simple configuration system (including compile-time optimizations) |
| control/ | Signaling tools allowing for fast and dynamic interaction across components |
| compiler/ | Components for compiling code |
| data/ | Tools for easy data management and output |
| datastructs/ | A variety of useful data structures and tools for using data structures |
| debug/ | Tools to facilitate debugging (particularly of emscripten-generated web code) |
| functional/ | Tools for handling functions, sets of functions, and memoization |
| games/ | Implementations of simple games |
| geometry/ | Geometry and physics-based tools for implementing simple virtual worlds |
| hardware/ | Implementation of basic virtual hardware that is easy to configure |
| io/ | Tools for handling input/output |
| matching/ | Tools for tag-based matching |
| math/ | Generally useful tools for math and randomness |
| meta/ | Helpful tools for template meta-programming |
| prefab/ | Prefabricated web elements to drop onto web pages |
| scholar/ | Tools for tracking authors, citations, and bibliographies |
| tools/ | Basic tools that are generally useful for scientific software |
| web/ | Tools for building web interfaces (more low-level than in prefab) |
| Evolve/ | Specialized tools for building Artificial Life or Evolutionary Computation projects |
| in_progress/ | Tools that are being worked on, but not at all ready for public consumption |
Empirical is under heavy development. As such, many source files have at least one of the following statuses:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| DESIGN | Notes are in place, but no (or minimal) working code |
| EXPLORATORY | Some functionality may work, but needs re-engineering to get right |
| ALPHA | Some basic functionality works, but more features still need to be added and tested |
| BETA | Basic functionality is all in place, but needs more thorough testing. |
| RELEASE | Well-tested functionality and used in multiple projects, at least by authors |
| STABLE | Used by many non-authors in assorted projects without fixes for extended period |
| ABANDONED | May have worked, or may not; no longer being developed |
| BROKEN | Once worked (at least BETA level), but now needs to be repaired (not abandoned!) |
| CLEANUP | At least BETA, but needs code cleanup, fixing of warnings, etc |
| DEPRECATED | Functionality has been replaced and should shift to replacement. |
| EXTERNAL | Part of another project (cited above); not developed as part of Empirical |
The structure of Empirical is levelized to facilitate development and testing. This means that all directories are on a level where dependencies are either internal to that directory or on lower levels. Likewise, within a directory, files have a level and depend only on other files at lower levels.
| Level | Folders |
|---|---|
| 0 | base/ |
| 1 | meta/ |
| 2 | tools/ |
| 3 | config/ control/ data/ games/ geometry/ hardware/ scholar/ |
| 4 | Evolve/ (data, control) web/ (config, control) |