| Dear Hilt,
I don't have anything against C, C++, Java, C#, etc, but they are very low-level modeling languages, if you can call them a modeling language at all (I actually don't think they qualify as a modeling language). If you have never programmed, my advice is not to start at that level. It will be too difficult to get yourself going. I would also advice against using any agent-based language that is derived from any of these low-level languages (meaning they have libraries in these low-level language that you use), if you have never programmed. There are agent-based simulation MODELING languages out there that are at a higher level of abstraction. For example, Brahms is a pure multi-agent language and simulation environment that is BDI-like (BDI = Belief-Desire-Intention), based on Activity theory, and allows you to represent geography in a conceptual way. For example, it is very simple in Brahms to define a city with places, buildings, floors in building, rooms, etc, and paths between these that agents can move to. You can easily define types of cats with behavior using a rule-based language (not having to deal with pointers or other memory issues) that allow agents to reason and/or act in the world. In Brahms there is a separation between objects in the world (artifacts) and agents (e.g. cats). Both can have a location. There is also a separation of facts (about agents, objects, and locations) in the world (the "world-truth," for example Cat-Mini is located in Joe's-House) and the beliefs that agents have about these (Joe beliefs that Cat-Mini is outside in the garden). Agents can detect facts in the world, and some facts, like "where am I", are automatically given to the agent. This allows for very simple reactive-behavior (e.g. if Joe knows that Cat-Mini is inside the house, then he will feed her).
As evidence that you can learn Brahms in a reasonable amount of time I can say that I have given a Brahms graduate course at UC Berkeley, and had a Ph.D. student in Architecture in my class who had never programmed. At the end of the class she actually delivered one of the better Brahms simulations. Maybe because she wasn't yet "spoiled" in having learned procedural or object-oriented programming, and the agent, BDI, and activity paradigms came very natural.
Anyway, just a point of view from my end. It's a tough simulation world out there with so many tools, languages and opinions ;-)
Good luck!!
Doei ... MXS _______________________________________________________________________
Dr. ing. Maarten Sierhuis USRA/RIACS Senior Scientist Mail Stop B269-1 Human-Centered Computing NASA Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA 94035 Phone: (650) 604-4917 Fax: (650) 604-4036
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On Nov 22, 2006, at 3:29 AM, hilit wrote: Hello everyone!! I am Hilit Finkler, a PhD student in Zoology, from Israel. I wish to explore stray cat dynamics in my city by using an individual based spatially explicit model. Problem is, I don't even know how to start!! I don't have any background in programming. I was told by a colleague who has done such a model to begin with a flow chart of all the cat behaviours I know, but I feel it is too early for me because I know so much about the cats and so little about "making a model". Do you have any suggestions for a "green" like me? Thanks, Hilit _______________________________________________ Modelling mailing list |