[Developers] Control files and basic MCMC

[Arni Magnusson]

Excellent.

ADMB version r1509 proudly presents the LUP vector. A new overloaded 
function init_bounded_number(LUP) that accepts as an argument a vector of 
length 3 that specifies the lower bound, upper bound, and phase.

As the rest of us were getting excited about pseudocode and issue tickets 
Dave ended the discussion by just writing the code... Steve Martell then 
committed the code to the trunk (r1509).

I have created a Plone directory dedicated to this development at 
http://admb-project.org/developers/ctl

It currently contains three models (example, pella, pella2) that 
demonstrate the new capability. As advertised, the code shrinks and 
simplifies considerably. In pella2, the control file is now LUP instead of 
PLUI, so the initial values are set in a .pin file. One could of course 
specify the initial values at the bottom of the control file, or put 
everything in the .dat file, like John Sibert mentioned.

I hope the http://admb-project.org/developers/ctl directory will encourage 
developers to test and upload new ideas about further improvements of the 
control file functionality in ADMB. John's XML idea could be valuable, 
also to establish a general interface to external programs or data 
servers. ADMB can handle big data, right?

Arni