Identifier names

[Winnus]

A neuron group can only have a fixed value for each identifier for all its neurons.
This way one need to create a loihi_neuron_group for every identifier combination.

But Brian can do better because one can do the following:

Define model

Equation = 'dv/dt = v/tau : 1'
n = NeuronGroup(4096, Equation)

change specific neuron

With subgroups

n[0].tau = 1
n[3].tau = 100

with indexing, i = internal number of neuron

n.tau = 'i'

This provides great flexibility.

The problem right now is that the emulator does not use internal variables for the neuron model, rather replace tau with a direct float value via string manipulation.

By making it a variable the emulator would provide more flexibility but also (may one can use @variable.setter if subgroups are used) loose the option to check if the input the user gives is correct i.e. fitting in the range of Loihi values.

[andrewlehr]

Yeah, I think we should do this.

We should make these things internal variables and give the user the option of defining more internal variables via an (optional) string they can pass to the neuron or synapse group (see #17 ). I've forked the repo and implemented this for neuron groups.

A possible solution is to define all variables as internal variables and to provide the values via the neuron/synapse group's namespace. I think this way the check of Loihi constraints will still work.