On 4/18/13 12:19 PM, glen wrote:
If you logically abstract the physics engine, you can swap it out, at
will (in principle, anyway), replace a coarse one with a finer one or
one that implements an entirely different physics.
Even though we _speculate_ that this can be done in principle, how often
is it actually done?
Well, I've done this before on a real problem using a monadic interface
of Bullet physics to Haskell.
It just amounts to agents/clever particles/etc. asking themselves,
"Where am I?", or "Let's point the rocketship north!", etc. The
consequences of that the physics engine copes with.. That's a decent
way to do things because agents don't make the rules about much of their
physical environment. The increasingly irrelevant point was that
choosing strong or weak typing in a simulation implementation (model
description, whatever) isn't a function the need to estimate a physical
environment. It's not related as far as I can tell.
Another non-hybrid example: Molecular dynamics folks switch between
different force fields.
The extent to which those of us willing to play the games are scorned or
ridiculed by those who are unwilling, provides social pressure that
positively reinforces the already present building block and
reductionism bias.
I agree it doesn't come up much because the either camp is too busy
being convinced they have the right way to look at things.. :-)
Marcus
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