CASINO manual - Theory of Condensed Matter
CASINO manual - Theory of Condensed Matter
CASINO manual - Theory of Condensed Matter
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
3.2 Legal stuff<br />
casino is given away for free to any academic or individual wishing to use it for non-pr<strong>of</strong>it making<br />
purposes (commercial companies should make a specific email enquiry). The s<strong>of</strong>tware may be<br />
downloaded from our public website at vallico.net/casinoqmc/download-casino/. The download<br />
procedure involves ticking a checkbox agreeing to certain legal conditions, the practical upshot<br />
<strong>of</strong> which is that users may not redistribute the code, they may not incorporate any part <strong>of</strong> it into<br />
any other program, nor may they modify it in any way whatsoever without prior agreement <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Cambridge group (though this is usually very easy to obtain). You may not use or even retain a<br />
copy <strong>of</strong> casino if you have not recorded your agreement to these conditions. A copy <strong>of</strong> the agreement<br />
can be found in the casino distribution in the file <strong>CASINO</strong>/doc/academic consent form.pdf<br />
or <strong>CASINO</strong>/doc/commercial consent form.pdf (the latter should be used only in the case <strong>of</strong> pr<strong>of</strong>itmaking<br />
companies).<br />
3.3 Getting the latest version <strong>of</strong> the code<br />
New versions <strong>of</strong> casino are produced on a regular basis (nightly builds for the beta version). People<br />
downloading the s<strong>of</strong>tware for the first time should fill in the form on the following web page:<br />
vallico.net/casinoqmc/download-casino/. After filling in the form you will be able to download<br />
the standard version <strong>of</strong> the code immediately, and a request for a casino login ID and password will<br />
be triggered. This ID is required to update your copy <strong>of</strong> casino with later updates. It may also be<br />
used to access the casino online discussion forum, and to publish ‘Blog’ or ‘Project’ posts on the<br />
casino website. Tickboxes requesting these services, as well as ones for joining the casino mailing<br />
list, attending the annual summer school, or for <strong>of</strong>fering your services for development work, are all<br />
part <strong>of</strong> the online registration form.<br />
In the initial download, users have the option <strong>of</strong> downloading either the most recent stable version<br />
or the ‘current beta version’. The current beta is a build with the latest changes released as they<br />
happen, which may or may not be suitable for production work, but is required for development<br />
work. Subsequent updates to the code may be downloaded from the site vallico.net/casinoqmc/<br />
update-casino using your casino login ID and password.<br />
Users in the Cambridge TCM group who belong to the Unix group ‘casino’ may additionally copy<br />
the latest source from the directory ~casino/PUBLIC/current beta, and access the git repository<br />
at ~casino/git/<strong>CASINO</strong>.<br />
If you have been accepted as a developer (see vallico.net/casinoqmc/<br />
how-to-become-a-developer/) then your casino login ID will also give you access to the developer<br />
version <strong>of</strong> the code, which you can download from vallico.net/casinoqmc/download-developer/.<br />
The developer version is identical to the standard version in all respects, except that the standard<br />
version has ‘obfuscated’ source code which has deliberately been made very difficult to read. The<br />
developer version has the full documented source code.<br />
Note that there exists a mailing list through which all licensed casino developers (who are listed on<br />
the page vallico.net/casinoqmc/things-to-do/) are encouraged to communicate with each other.<br />
Ask MDT if you wish to be added to or removed from this list.<br />
The casino authors use the git revision control system, and it is possible for external developers to<br />
have (read-only) access to our git repository. git-formatted patches may be sent to Mike Towler<br />
who will (probably) incorporate them into the master repository.<br />
It would be greatly appreciated if you could forward a copy <strong>of</strong> any article published using the results<br />
<strong>of</strong> casino calculations to us, both for our interest and so that we can add references to the casino<br />
web pages. If you wish, you may add blog posts to the casino public website using your casino login<br />
ID; this is a good way to publicize your research to the QMC community.<br />
4 Functionality <strong>of</strong> <strong>CASINO</strong><br />
The casino program continues to be actively developed and many improvements and revisions are<br />
envisaged, but in its present state its capabilities are as follows:<br />
• Methods:<br />
3