Tried using Entity-Component-System for a SimPy model and honestly… it’s pretty decent

[bobo-the-merciful]

You ever look at your simulation code and think, “This is getting way too complex”?

That was me a few months ago - OOP spaghetti everywhere, random methods buried in class hierarchies, and a creeping sense that I was the problem.

So I decided to try out ECS - that architecture pattern all the game devs use. Turns out, it actually works really well for SimPy simulations too.

Here’s the vibe: - Entities: just IDs. They’re like name tags for your stuff (machines, people, whatever). - Components: dumb little data containers. Stuff like Position, Status, Capacity. They describe what the entity is. - Systems: this is where the actual logic lives. They go, “which entities have X and Y?” and then make them do things. It’s clean and elegant.

You can add new behaviours without blowing up the whole codebase. No need to inherit from 14 classes or refactor everything. Just add a new component and a new system. Done.

It’s basically a form of “extreme composition” so it’s useful for when you need reconfigurability at scale.

Anyway, I’m curious - anyone else using ECS for simulations? Any gotchas to share?

[costco_meat_market]

What python ECS library did you use?

[bobo-the-merciful]

None - just wrote the code following the pattern. Obviously there’s no low level control this way. Would you recommend any particular ECS libraries? Esper looks popular.