Thanks, Doug.
I am continuing to mull over the idea that the structure comes from the
problems, not from the simulations that solve them.
Nick
----- Original Message -----
From: Douglas Roberts
To: nickthomp...@earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee
Group
Sent: 1/4/2009 11:16:21 AM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Classification of ABM's
I'm afraid taxonomy, mentally encapsulated or otherwise, has little to do with
the way I develop an ABM, Nick. Rather, good software engineering practices
provide the tools for success. CMMI provides a reasonable software engineering
methodology that emphasizes feedback between the following project phases.
CMMI is a good replacement of the old, rigid "Waterfall" SW engineering
approach. Not that i am a huge fan of rigid, formal SW engineering approaches,
but CMMI at least encourages feedback between the following standard SW project
engineering stages:
Develop a requirements doc that states what the problem is, and what the
simulation will be required to produce for results.
Develop a design. An ABM design, if the the requirements describe real-world
entities that interact with each other in meaningful ways. The ABM modeling
approach naturally covers many real world application areas (duh, the universe
is populated with enteracting enties, duh), but not all systems are best suted
to ABM appproaches for one reason or another.
Select an implementation environment, unless it was specified in the
requirements.
Code
Test
V&V
The "magic" involved with being able to develop a successful ABM, or any other
kind of simulation derives from the ability to develop a realistic requirements
document, followed by appropriately defining the correct levels of abstraction
between the real-world entities to be modeled, and their corresponding
simulation agents.
Extracting a realistic requirements definition from the client, or as it
frequently turns out, helping the client develop one is the most important
phase of any SW project. If you allow a fuzzy, ill-defined, vague,
contridictory requirements definition to stand, the project will fail.
--Doug
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
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