> It's all fine and good to try to lower the cost of entry to ABM,
> but to
> get science done ABMers need a way to say something precise and
> have it
> understood by theorists. Pretty visual programming systems, GIS,
> etc.
> don't necessarily accomplish that.
I totally agree, and indeed we've looked into more analytic tools for
modeling. Certainly at the surface level, tools that help you know
how stable your results are are important (i.e. take the derivative
of your model, so to speak). Ditto for good design of experiments
aids which give good hints at where your model should be studied
most .. where are the "interesting areas".
And indeed, many of our models could have a more mathematical
component. Hmm..that gets me back to the earlier discussion on the
gap between computing and math. But in that sphere, one of the
better talks given at the SFI BusNet was of researchers using both
modeling and math together, until the math had to "assume a spherical
cow" so to speak, and plotting their divergence
But the bigger picture of my wish is precisely that: we need to build
a far broader set of easily integrated tools for ABM. Far more
important is the synergy amongst them than their ease of use.
-- Owen
Owen Densmore http://backspaces.net
On Dec 31, 2006, at 11:29 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote:
>>
>> Well, from our side of the world, obviously a killer simulation
>> environment.
> I recently watched an interview on the Research Channel with Anders
> Hejisberg, inventor of Turbo Pascal and C#. A former project
> manager of
> his at Borland was talking about their abandoned visual programming
> project, Monet, that Anders was involved in before joining Microsoft.
> Anders remarked that sometimes "a single line of code is often worth a
> thousand pictures. You die a slow death of a thousand lines going
> from
> here to there." [An example of the "lines" being the object/message
> connections i.e. MacOS X Interface Builder.]
>
> It's all fine and good to try to lower the cost of entry to ABM,
> but to
> get science done ABMers need a way to say something precise and
> have it
> understood by theorists. Pretty visual programming systems, GIS,
> etc.
> don't necessarily accomplish that.
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
