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

[Pietro Terna]

At 08.19 18/01/00 -0500, you wrote:
>Not caring about the electronics in a car (or source code) is fine, 
>but you are still responsible for your electronics working properly.  
>I was a police officer for
         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
... a police officer? Good that I'm in Italy! :-)

>several years and when I was given excuses like "but my speedometer said...,"
>(and a  myriad of others...no wonder I became a modeler :-)  it usually
>prompted me into the "the proper operation of your vehicle is your
>responsibility"  lecture.  In the same way, the modeler or scientist is
>responsible for code they use, even if deeply embedded in a package.  
>You may choose not to browse swarm code at some level and
>trust that it was written satisfactorily for your particular needs...
>but you are still responsible for the results.  Who of us wants to hear 
>an explaination of an error start with "but swarm was supposed to...."

        I agree absolutely, but my suggestion (and my auto-discipline) is that 
of
testing deeply, step by step, my results, never accepting a good result
that arise from a simulation code if the same code is not reproducing also
some well known verification result.

        Obviously, also in this way, mainly in the presence of random choices, 
we
are never absolutely sure of out outputs, but ... browising a code (both
our code or a professional one) are we sure of understanding all the
consequences of the traduction of an algorithm in languages as C, Lisp, etc.?

        Pietro



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