Re: The Swarm space (was RePast (another agent toolkit)released)

[Miles Parker]

[It think I need to go to remedial email school..this time I sent the reply to 
Glen, but not the list...]

>>And, to be fair, Java *is* more than just a fad.  Although it
has enough hype around it that its unclear which parts are faddish
and which parts are real technology.    And until it all shakes out,
conservatism reigns...

I think your distinction makes sense; there has been an incredible amount of 
hype surrounding Java, but then the backlash was pretty heavy too. I do think 
that we can say that Java is now a mature technology, and that it works for 
agent modelling. If there are specific (or even theoretical) ultimate 
technological contraints that it might pose, I haven't heard them, though I 
recognize that there have been some serious practical contraints. That said, I 
don't really advocate abandoning or throwing out other established, mature 
approaches that are out there either. There is something to be said for 
sticking with what works.

Also I tend to work in modelling areas that don't encompass the very complex 
multi-faceted systems that Swarm ultimitaly envisions, and I think that 
building the Swarm system for all possible cases means that there is a lot of 
conceptual and techinical load that can be reduced or eliminated for many 
common modelling problems. Its kind of an 80/20 issue, though I'm not sure that 
that's where the numbers are. This is where I think Ascape shines, by the way..

>>But, all that aside, I was hoping to hear from you some recommendations
as to what we should be doing, now.  Now that we have JavaSwarm, aScape,
and RePast.... now that we have R and HDF.... now that we have the SDG
and a membership structure that will help support people like you and
Nick in your efforts... what do we do?

Well, its an interesting question...I'll definitly give it some thought, and 
let you know if I come up with anything. But as I hope I made clear, in 
general, I can't think of anything that Swarm should be doing or not doing that 
isn't already being discussed. But I do really appreciate what you're saying, 
and Swarm's continuing strong openess to other tools within the Swarm paridigm. 
Everyone's attitudes in this regard are invariably refreshing.

-Miles



Miles T. Parker
Software Engineer
The Brookings Institution  1775 Mass. Ave. NW  Washington, DC  20036
http://www.brook.edu/es/dynamics/models/ascape
mailto:address@hidden  voice 202.797.6136  fax 202.797.6319



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