Avoiding BaseModel imports in model __init__

[davidorme]

As noted in #1136, we currently use a pattern where we import the BaseModel subclass of a model within the model __init__.py. If I recall correctly, this is simply to make it easier to find that model class - the import is not used within __init__.py (and in fact we have to mark them all to placate ruff warning us about unused imports.

That has the serious downside that it makes it impossible to share components between models without importing the BaseModel subclass module, which is often complex. The end result is that importing anything from one model drags in a whole load of imports and makes circular imports very hard to avoid.

The motivating example here is that the abiotic and abiotic_simple configs are extremely similar and we use abiotic_simple methods in abiotic: we want to share these definitions, but it is finicky because of these import chains.

I think it gets a whole lot simpler if we simply adjust the register_model function to look for the BaseModel in it's actual source file rather than expecting to import it from the model root namespace. That's really not much more complex.

We could do this by expecting to always look for the same file name (plants.model) etc. That would be cleaner. But for the moment, the pattern plants.plants_model works just fine.

Fixes #1136

Type of change

• New feature (non-breaking change which adds functionality)
• Optimization (back-end change that speeds up the code)
• Bug fix (non-breaking change which fixes an issue)

Key checklist

• Make sure you've run the pre-commit checks: $ pre-commit run -a
• All tests pass: $ poetry run pytest

Further checks

• Code is commented, particularly in hard-to-understand areas
• Tests added that prove fix is effective or that feature works
• Relevant documentation reviewed and updated

[codecov-commenter]

Codecov Report

❌ Patch coverage is 85.18519% with 4 lines in your changes missing coverage. Please review.
✅ Project coverage is 94.33%. Comparing base (4e4a691) to head (e95f355).
⚠️ Report is 821 commits behind head on develop.

Files with missing lines	Patch %	Lines
virtual_ecosystem/core/registry.py	85.18%	4 Missing ⚠️

Additional details and impacted files

@@             Coverage Diff             @@
##           develop    #1138      +/-   ##
===========================================
- Coverage    94.39%   94.33%   -0.07%     
===========================================
  Files           78       70       -8     
  Lines         7035     7029       -6     
===========================================
- Hits          6641     6631      -10     
- Misses         394      398       +4     

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[davidorme]

@dalonsoa Does this make sense to you? It just seems simpler and less intrusive to me and I think it'll make it easier to use model components across models.

[dalonsoa]

Have a minor comment, but the change makes total sense. Not sure the original reason for the design, to be honest.

[dalonsoa]

Probably.

[davidorme]

I'll park it for now. Again.