Re: Open source? -> Need to read source to model?

[David O'Sullivan]

Hi,
I think it is *extremely important* that the source code be open and
distributed with Swarm.  What people do with the source is up to them.  

The important thing is that this sort of modelling introduces many
assumptions into the process which no amount of friendly documentation can
ever fully explain, if someone really wants to get to the bottom of the
model they have just built - and explain it properly to a (potentially
sceptical) audience in their own field.  

I think you'll find that many of the less technically literate audience for
this sort of work in sociology, anthropology, archaeology, geography etc
will be extremely sceptical about any sort of black-box modelling
language/tool (see the arguments in geography over GIS). Being able to
examine the source may occasionally allow proponents of the approach to win
the arguments.

A prototyping environment like StarLogo would be nice, but ultimately you
do want to be able to answer any question that might be thrown at a model,
and that kind of closed environment may often stop you from doing that. 

Any thoughts?

Cheers

David


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DAVID O'SULLIVAN
RESEARCH STUDENT         
CENTRE FOR ADVANCED SPATIAL ANALYSIS                       
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON, 1-19 TORRINGTON PLACE, LONDON WC1E 6BT       
[p] +44(0)171 391 1812       
[f] +44(0)171 813 2843        
[e] address@hidden       
[w] http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/~david/        
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