Re: [Swarm-Modelling] model problem

[Darren Schreiber]

Like most computer tools, you can do a really wide variety of things  
with Swarm.  However, it doesn't mean that Swarm is the right tool  
(either the easiest, fastest, most intuitive, etc) for the problem  
that you are facing.  One path that helped me was to look at what  
other people had done with Swarm and see whether the things I wanted  
to do could be analogized to their projects.  That way, I could  
borrow pieces of the solutions that they had come up with and not  
have to reinvent everything.

Swarm definitely has a theory behind it.  It comes out of an idea  
that many systems are most effectively represented in an agent- 
centered fashion.  In my mind, this is akin to the paradigm shift  
towards object oriented rather than procedural or functional  
programming.  In social science terms, it is a move away from  
modeling macro assumptions and towards modeling micro assumptions and  
letting the macro-behaviors emerge.

    Darren


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I'm heading back to California and UCSD's Political Science Department,
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Please update your address books with my new email address:

    dmschreiber (at) ucsd (dot) edu
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On Aug 20, 2005, at 7:01 PM, John Lee wrote:

> I'd complied and ran it.  It seems no obviously theory that I could
> reference.  So that means I can build any model by Swarm?
>
> Thanks again.
> John
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: address@hidden [mailto:modelling- 
> address@hidden On
> Behalf Of Paul Johnson
> Sent: Sunday, August 21, 2005 7:13 AM
> To: Swarm Modelling
> Subject: Re: [Swarm-Modelling] model problem
>
> I think the SwarmFaq has a section for "complete newcomers." I'd  
> suggest
> you download the swarmapps package, which contains several test  
> programs
> you can compile and run.
>
> pj
>
> bjohnlee wrote:
>
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > I'm new to Swarm. As I use it, I have some questions about it.
> >
> > 1. When I'm modeling, I don't realize what can do about "defobj" and
> > "objectbase" in the library.
> >
> > 2. Does Swarm itself provide any model? Or Swarm just provides method
> > to use and models by myself?
> > If so, what theory (or background) the methods are based on? I just
> > know Swarm is based on CAS.
> > But in CAS, is there only one model? In terms, I want to know whether
> > model should be built by myself.
> >
> > 3. In the main page of SwarmWiki, I saw "Contributions," does it mean
> > model?
> >
> > Hope to get comments on the matters above. Thanks again.
> >
> > John
> >
> > --------------------------------------------------------------------- 
> > ---
> >
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