Wolfram is/was a big advocate of cellular automata - he even proposed them as a new fundamental unit of study in NKS.
Given that, I have to imagine the revamped Mathematica, now called Wolfram Language, has built-in support for CAs and swarm programming. I think the APLs, J included, are kind of the antithesis of swarm programming. J is the canonical top-down kind of language, whereas swarm behavior manifests bottom-up. A bunch of independent agents each following their own rules, giving rise to higher level, emergent behaviors of the crowd/swarm as a whole. It could be modeled in J, of course (anything can), but I’d argue it wouldn’t be a natural fit. -Dan > On Jul 30, 2015, at 8:39 AM, R.E. Boss <[email protected]> wrote: > > The other day I noticed a quote in the lab J By Point & Click: "Ken Iverson > put it this way: In J, when you want to move the army from Philadelphia to > New York, you say just that: move the army from Philadelphia to New York. > In a scalar language, you say, Go to every soldier, and move that soldier to > New York." which I remembered when I read > http://www.technologyreview.com/view/539761/a-programming-language-for-robot > -swarms/ . > Especially where it says "The opposing method is a top down approach in > which the swarm is controlled as a whole." and "(...)the absence of a > standardised programming language for swarms is a significant barrier to > future progress (...) " > > Hear, hear. > > > R.E. Boss > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
