Chapter Two

Date 22/07/2017.

I've got the core Q Learning algorithm implemented successfully as well as a graphical representation of the changing Q values that are learnt. I began working on some of the housekeeping functions such as open dialog boxes so you could load different experimental configurations, when I ran into the font problem again with the high resolution monitors. Unfortunately the previous trick of explicitly setting the font size is not as successful with JFileChooser and so after reviewing some commentary on the subject I've decided i need to convert the entire application to JavaFX to get it to work properly from a GUI perspective.
However, that is only a secondary goal. the existing GUI works well enough and converting from swing to fx is going to give me nothing more than pretty menu bars and file choosers. If I just change the properties file a little bit to include the number of runs in the batch I can still have it run multiple experiments. It's just that the parameters will come form the properties file rather than the gui.
I would much rather put another 50 hours implementing the deep neural network to replace the array structure for managing the q state data than changing the gui. I also want to finish this up so I can move onto my next project. I think 50 more hours would be better spent tidying it up, get all the remaining parameters from the properties file, some instructions on how to use it and build the neural network using Deeplearning4. Then for my next project I will use fx and learn about it then.

Date 30/07/17.
Spent a few hours learning how to put a youtube video together. Reasonably easy process. There is an entire industry to service youtube creators (as I've learnt they are called). A few hundred dollars an I've acquired some excellent software to capture the animations from the screen and publish them. Next step is to set up some basic experiments to run via dos batch jobs. Took a while to build the executable Jar file, appears to be a defect in Intellij around where it puts the manifest file, all sorted now. Then write up some easy to understand tutorials and a few simple experiments and I think I can wrap this stage up.