Re: A whiff of reality...

[glen e. p. ropella]

At 07:43 PM 5/1/00 -0700, you wrote:
> However, to stick with computer issues, who has scholarly citations on
> software engineering aspects of ABMs? A real help might even be a
> software engineering text that discusses testing and reliability of
> object-oriented models.

There are plenty.  The ACM is full of these.  CMU is full of them.
What we need is something more specific.  It *is* a point of contention
whether the model survives bugs in the implementation (where "model"
basically means "logical abstraction").  Since the map between a
specification and an implementation is not usually one-to-one,
it's entirely possible that changes on one side do not affect
the behavior on the other side.  But, this guy is pointing out that
they often do.

The software engineering name for this process is "verification"
as distinct from validation.  And as Doug and Marcus pointed out,
any general programming language, including ObjC and Java will
exhibit a need for verification.  This is also the basis for using
languages built upon formalisms like the pi calculus, so that
verfication becomes mechanical and automated.  But, attaching
oneself to a formalism fundamentally limits the expressiveness
of the language.  So, it's a trade-off.

I would be happy to collect some academic articles on verification
in abms.  It will take me awhile, though; because, there's so much
out there that you really need to be specific about the point you're
making to get beyond the basic simulation references.

glen

--
glen e. p. ropella =><= The front line is everywhere. Hail Eris!
Home: http://forager.swarm.com/~gepr              (505) 424-0448
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