RE: Compare Swarm with Repast

[Marshall, James A R]

  I'm a bit confused about your assertion that Java doesn't support
polymorphism. It certainly
does, which is understandable as this is the cornerstone of object-oriented
programming.
Perhaps one difference is that in your Objective C implementation with
message passing it is
not necessary to have all the agents that respond to common messages
(functions) inheriting from a base
class that declares these messages (functions), whereas in Java that would
be necessary.
  As for my experience, having started out with Swarm in Objective-C before
the Java interface
was built, and recently moving over to Java, I think the advantages of Java
are primarily that it is
better supported with better learning resources, IDEs, CASE tools, etc.
Having made the switch I'm
quite happy...
        James

---
Dr James A R Marshall
Container World Project - http://www.ese.ic.ac.uk/research/containerworld/
Department of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Imperial College, London
Tel: +44 (0)20 7594 7493
Fax: +44 (0)20 7594 7444

-----Original Message-----
From: M Lang / S Railsback [mailto:address@hidden
Sent: 12 August 2002 14:46
To: address@hidden
Subject: Re: Compare Swarm with Repast


Russell Standish wrote:
> 
> Problems with Java.
> 
> 1) Its slow
> 2) Has too many incompatible versions
> 3) Lacks operator overloading
> 4) Lacks generic programming
> 5) Lack multiple inheritance and polymorphism

Here are my two cent's worth, as someone who (a) has not yet given Java
a serious try, and (b) has had the luxury of working with experienced C
programmers on my Swarm projects.

a. I have *never* had a problem installing and running Swarm, using the
packaged releases for Windows. 

b. Russell's problem #5 is to us a real one- the lack of polymorphism. I
think this is the same issue Glen was getting at- Objective C gives you
more flexibility to have agents of different classes all mixed up
competing with each other, etc., and the model swarm not having to know
what class agent it is telling to do what. I'm not sure how we could do
some of our models without polymorphism.

c. Thanks for all the timely discussion as I am finishing up a draft
book chapter on software for agent-based ecological models. (It is NOT a
review of all the platforms out there, but instead an overview of things
to think about for people getting started.) If someone is dying to
review it for me, please send me a message.

Steve

-- 
address@hidden
Lang, Railsback & Assoc.
250 California Ave., Arcata CA 95521
707-822-0453; Fax 822-1868


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                  ==================================
   Swarm-Modelling is for discussion of Simulation and Modelling techniques
   esp. using Swarm.  For list administration needs (esp. [un]subscribing),
   please send a message to <address@hidden> with "help" in the
   body of the message.
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