I think these files should live on Box rather than in GitHub. It's likely our workflow will include a number of iterations on model runs and there's no need to repeatedly commit data files to GitHub since they don't serve any purpose here, and Box keeps versions/timestamps.

@lmz I agree, the purpose of these files (at least having a couple of them as samples) is to give flexibility to people who don't have access to BOX to run the whole script as a demo. This is helpful for me or people on our team. In this way, anyone can demo the script and provide improvements later. The end goal is that for all MTC team, they'll automatically use the paths in the mtc.py file which point directly to BOX. Additionally, it's a way to clearly state as a sample the shape in which we are expecting to receive the inputs.

It's trivial to give other folks access to Box; please request if you need others to have access. We generally keep data files on Box and not on GitHub, and I'd prefer to keep it that way; having it both ways adds confusion.

This folder (templates) has three files which makes you click around and the paths could just be done using an if statement without this kind of complexity. A simple if would make it clear what variables need to be defined for each environment and this structure is more error prone. Suggest deprecating this, and just inlining this logic somewhere else that's logical.

Also, please use pathlib for paths rather than strings with replace("\\","/"). pathlib handles forward versus backward slashes, etc and it is much more readable.

@lmz Thanks for the suggestion, I will keep them together instead in multiple locations and propose a new location for this logic.

Please rename this to be something more descriptive; suggest "OffModelCalculator" rather than "Calc". Also, please add documentation for the class variables and methods.

Also, let's just make the args that are passed into the constructor explicit, rather than hiding them in "args" -- there's only two...

@lmz sounds good. I've integrated this change in a new commit.

What does "mons" mean?

If these methods are for the Calc class, can they just be static methods of the class? Ditto for methods in runs.py

@lmz "mons" was a shorter name for commons. I will rename the file as commons.py. Here I want to add helper methods that are common between multiple calculators were transformations are needed.

I can definitely keep the methods in "commons" and "runs" in the same file. However, I wanted to have the OffModelCalculator class to include only the methods that are necessary in the high-level process. In this way, I can follow the update process in a more clear-cut way. Would that be okay with you?

The terminology is confusing here... what a "NewRun"? Internally, we think of model runs being Travel Model Runs, but we wouldn't be creating a new run here. Suggest some clarity -- if not in the method naming, through method documentation.

@lmz sounds good! I've added the method documentation.

Similarly -- what is this? I would think this should go on Box?

@lmz the IPA_TM2 folder saved in the inputs is the folder we received as an example of what the R script created (previous step). I am not touching this folder design because I'm not updating the R script. I'm only using it as the expected input sample folder.

Once we complete all the updates and run a demo, we can remove all the files that are unnecessary in the process, if applicable. My understanding is that we only need the files in IPA_TM2/ModelData. Ideally, we'd like the R script to reflect that.

What is this? Does it need to be excel? It makes it hard to see diffs, so if it could be a CSV instead, that would be preferrable.

@lmz this file was created with the intention that the Off Model Calculator manager could update the Calculators in the folder "models" and then, update the Variable_locations Excel file with the added/updated cell locations. We're using excel as a UI to make it easier to update. The end goal is for the manager to update the calculators and be able to run the script even when cells have changed location in the individual calculators.

Now, the Off Model Calculators latest version will be in the folder "models" to be used as the source of truth. Those files will keep a log of the runs that have been executed.

Rather than commenting out a bunch of code, go ahead and just remove it, since it's still viewable in the git history...

@lmz absolutely! I am still in the process of converting the missing calculators, so I wanted to see each update process. Once I complete this step, I will delete all the commented code and keep it clean.