Solution Approach

Solution Approach
	Chapter 1. Foundations

From reading the problem and use case information, we can identify at least the following four general elements to our application.

The game being simulated. This includes the various elements of the game: the wheel, the dice, the cards, the table and the bets.
The player being simulated. This includes the various decisions the player makes based on the state of the game, and the various rules of the betting system the player is following.
The statistics being collected.
An overall control component which processes the game, collects the statistics and writes the details or the final summary.

When we look at common design patterns, the Model-View-Control pattern often helps to structure applications. A more sophisticated, transactional application may require a more complex structure. However, in this case, the game, the player, and the statistics are the model. The command line selection of player and the reporting of raw data is the view. The overall control component creates the various objects to start the simulation.

While interesting, we will not pursue the design of a general-purpose simulation framework. Nor will we use any of the available general frameworks. While these are handy and powerful tools, we want to focus on developing application software “from scratch” as a learning exercise.

Our solution will depend heavily on desktop integration: the actor will use their IDE to create a strategy and build a new version of the application program. Once the application is built, the actor can run the application from the command line, collecting the output file. The statistical results file can be analyzed using a spreadsheet application. There are at least three separate application programs involved: the IDE (including editor and compiler), the simulator, the spreadsheet used for analysis.

A typical execution of the simulator will look like the following example.

Example 1.1. Sample Java Execution

java  casino.MainCrapsSim  --Dplayer.name="Player1326"  >details.log

	We select the main simulator control using the package `casino` and the class `MainCrapsSim`.
	We define the player to use `Player1326`. The main method will use this parameter to create objects and execute the simulation.
	We collect the raw data in a file named `details.log`.

We are intentionally limiting our approach to a simple command-line application using the default language libraries. Avoiding additional libraries assures a “lowest-common denominator” multi-platform application. For Java, this standard is the J2SE set of libraries; we won't use any J2EE extensions. For Python, it is the base installation.

There are a number of more technical considerations that we will expand in the section called “Deliverables”. These include the use of an overall simulation framework and an approach for unit testing.

Among the topics this book deals with in a casual -- possibly misleading -- manner are probability and statitics. Experts will spot a number of gaps in our exposition. For example, there isn't a compelling need for simulation of the simpler games of Craps and Roulette, since they can be completely analyzed. However, our primary objective is to study programming, not casino games, therefore we don't mind solving known problems again. We are aware that our statistical analysis has a number of deficiencies. We will avoid any deeper investigation into statistics.


The Use Case		Methodology, Technique and Process