Last week there was a Top 5 things to learn about ICE? thread on the mailing list:

If you ICE experts out there had to recommend the top 5 (first) things to learn about ICE what would they be? I’m looking for cornerstone/pedestal type foundation items. I’m going to put some time into really learning ICE and I’d like to know what the most valuable concepts are.

There were several good responses, so I’ve combined them all and added a few more to make it a “top 10” (rather than a top 7). Also, I added some links to relevant videos (mostly my own). I’d also recommend you watch Paul Smith’s tutorials, starting with 1. What does ICE do?.

• The flow of data and the sequence of execution in ICE trees.
• Getting and setting data–understand data context, structure, and type
  About type and context
  Context in ICE
  About context part II
• Simulated vs non-simulated ICE trees, and how ICE trees fit into the operator stack.
  ICE and the construction stack
  ICE and the Post-Simulation region
• Using geometry locations to get data.
  Understanding locations in ICE
• Using Show Values and other debugging techniques to visualize what’s happening.
• Working with arrays.
  Arrays in ICE by Helge Mathee
• Working with compounds (and learning how to use them to simplify and organize your ICE trees).
  Downloading and installing compounds
• Working with vectors and reference frames (and matrices and 3d math in general).
  Local and global coordinates
• Using attributes to store data.
• Thinking in ICE. I think this is really about understanding how data flows through an ICE graph, how ICE trees can process large data sets with just a few connections, how context, structure, and type are dynamic and flexible, and how you do not apply “control flow” like you do in traditional scripting/programming.
  I think this video touches a bit on the data flow part, so I’ve included a link:
  Understanding data sets and arrays

Also, see these video tutorials:

• Paul Smith’s tutorials, starting with 1. What does ICE do?
• The xsisupport ICE tutorials and ICE-related blog posts.