Re: Swarm Futures re-cap

[Russell Standish]

I think F-script was being suggested for Swarm, not Ecolab. It appears
to be a Cocoa based scripting language, ie direct manipulating Obj C
objects. In Ecolab, the TCL language manipulates C++ objects directly
using the TCL_obj functionality (strictly speaking its not a library,
but I'm not sure what to call it!).

                                                Cheers

address@hidden wrote:
> 
> 
> OK.  This is going *very* well.  Our reports from Roger and Gulya
> will help, too.  Right now, I'm just collecting this stuff.  I'd
> like to have enough fodder for some solid discussion by the time
> SwarmFest comes around.
> 
> Also, we should have more discussion of the other implementations like
> AScape, RePast, MAS, Ecolab, StarLogo and any other tool that falls
> under "Swarm-like" modeling.  And I, personally, welcome discussion
> of things like Mathematica, Matlab, XMath, R, HDF, VenSim, ProModel,
> DADiSP, etcetcetc, as well as Linux (as a preferred platform), 
> Windows, Mac OSX, etc.  Heck, I'd even like to see some discussion of
> real-time systems.  Swarm has never even approached things like 
> real-time scheduling or embedded systems or mobile agents, etc.
> 
> It would be cool to have a little discussions on low-leve protocols
> for agents (SAX is NOT a low-level protocol [grin] but I suppose that's
> ok, too).
> 
> glen
> -----------Re-cap------------
> 
> >From Darren Schreiber:
> 
> 1. Teaching:
>    1.1  Install
>    1.2 High-level modeling
>        1.2.1 Agent interaction network topology tools
>        1.2.2 Creation and mgmt of agents
>        1.2.3 Input and output tools
>        1.2.4 Retain capability of puncturing the high-level when necessary
> 
> 2. Research:
>    2.1 High-level modeling
>        2.1.1 All of the points listed above go here, too
>        2.1.2 Rapid prototyping
>        2.1.3 Model replication through a gui or high-level language
>        2.1.4 Drag and drop GUI
>    2.2 Model Validation/Verification Toolkit
>        2.2.1 Docking tools to perform experiments on multiple models
>    2.3 Best Practice Modeling
>        2.3.1 Modeling Patterns for Input, Output, and Topology
> 
> 
> >From Jason Alexander:
> 
> 3. If we're going to break it, break everything that needs breaking.
> 
> 4. Problem List
>    4.1 The reference (SDG's) implementation is hard to install.
>    4.2 The reference implementation is complicated to use and 
>        inefficient for simple tasks.
>    4.3 (7.1) and (7.2) limit the propogation of Swarm.
>    4.4 It is hard to share models and extensions.
>    4.5 It is hard to graft a GUI on top of an application written for
>        the reference implementation (though this may be mitigated with
>        the Java layer or with other implementations).
> 
> 5. Benefits
>    5.1 Powerful, flexible, and open-ended
>        8.1.1  Powerful tools are HARD TO USE, which brings up the 
>               question of whether or not we need this much power.
> 
> 6. Imperatives
>    6.1 It should be easy for people using Swarm implementations to
>        describe modeling problems in the language they find most
>        suitable.
>    6.2 Make it easy for others to install an implementation on any
>        major platform.
>    6.3 Make it possible to embed Swarm models in a web page.
> 
> 7. Potential Directions
>    7.1  Develop a Mathematica-like model specification mechanism
>         7.1.1  "Notebook" model for modules/apps, which embody a complete
>                model specification that can be shared.
>         7.1.2  A multi-grained "language" that allowed both high-level
>                abstractions and low-level specification.
>    7.2  Dump Objective-C and re-implement the reference implementation in 
>         Java.
>         7.2.1  Leverages Java deployment (model sharing and installation)
>                and portability.
>         7.2.2  Leverages the many APIs available like Swing.
>         7.2.3  Embeddable in a client-side applet.
>         7.2.4  Leverages the community-generated tools like SGT.
>    7.3  Already have a proof-of-concept for (10.1 & 10.2) with 
>         <http://evolve.lse.ac.uk/jalex/misc/eml/docs>
> 
> >From Russell Standish:
> 8. Another toolkit with a slightly different focus: Ecolab.
> 9. Problems with the reference implementation of Swarm
>    9.1  Objective-C and Java are too simple to support some constructs.
>          9.1.1  Operator Overloading, generic programming
>          9.1.2  No parallelizing compiler
>    9.2  No complete scripting system
> 10. Swarm helped in designing Ecolab.
> 
> >From Phil <address@hidden>:
> 
> 11. F-Script as a suggested scripting integration (at least for Ecolab)
> 
> >From Gary Polhill:
> 
> 12. Build more on top of the existing libraries in the reference impl
>     12.1  Standar applications
>     12.2  Classes of agents
>     12.3  Model/ObserverSwarm extensions
>           12.3.1  Perhaps make Swarms into complete run-times and/or 
> interpreters
>                   that can read a specification and instatiate, then execute 
> that
>                   specification.
>           12.3.2  [Un]Marshalling of model specifications for transport or 
> storage
> 
> 13. Imperative
> 
>     13.1 Find out how much of most people's wishes could be achieved
>          through adding a bit of flesh on the Swarm libraries' bones,
>          rather than rebuilding the bones themselves.
> 
> 
> -- 
> glen e. p. ropella              =><=                           Hail Eris!
> H: 831.335.4950                              http://www.ropella.net/~gepr
> M: 831.247.7901                               http://www.tempusdictum.com
> 
> 
> 
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