Re: [Swarm-Modelling] Something Glen said

[Steven H. Rogers]

I should preface this by saying that I've been a lurker around the edges of
the Swarm community, not an active member.

Rob Bowers wrote:
> So is it the opinion of the Swarm community that a new user would be 
> better off investing in Repast?

No.  While Repast is useful for some environments, and the use of Python for
some things is interesting, I believe the Swarm/Objective-C is a better
foundation for future ABM work than Java or .NET, at least for me.  If
you're already a Java or C# programmer and have an aversion to learning
Objective-C, Repast becomes more interesting.

I believe the difficulty in getting started with Swarm may have been
overstated.  Bearing in mind that I'm already a Linux user and have
programmed in many languages, I found it quite easy to get Swarm running on
my Sony laptop running Red Hat 9.  If I were beginning dissertation
research, I wouldn't hesitate to use it, as is.

If you have no programming experience at all, I'd follow the recommendations
to try NetLogo to gain some modeling experience and see how far it'll take
you.  It may prove sufficient for your needs, and if not, you'll have a
better understanding of your requirements.  It'll be time well spent.  You
might also consider SimPy, also mentioned elsewhere in this thread.  It's
not specifically intended to for ABM, but is flexible enough to serve this
purpose and Python code is exceptionally clear and easy to understand.

Regards,
Steve
--
Steven H. Rogers, Ph.D., address@hidden
Weblog: http://shrogers.com/weblog
"He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense."
-- John McCarthy