Re: [Swarm-Modelling] lifecycle requirements

[Marcus G. Daniels]

glen e. p. ropella wrote:
> I don't want that detail in my _model_.  I want another agent to be able
> to speak "passTheSalt" or whatever and have it translated to:
>
>    [X abc: arg1];
>   
If we imagine that X, Y and Z agents are processes that listen, and that 
they each have a lexicon that happens to contain passTheSalt with a 
binding to -abc:, -def:, -ghi:, respectively, it's clear how this has to 
work, yes?   Of course agents in any given model won't necessarily need 
to accumulate lots of subjective state, so it's not clear to me this is 
a common case a toolkit must address
> If, however, what's being studied is, say, indigenous populations and
> how trade emerges, then those models _should_ look very different from
> typical computer programs.
>   
Of course!

Here's my point:  If you have a long process of identifying requirements 
without triaging them as to how best to make them integrated and useful 
(by prototyping real code as you go), and without noticing the ones that 
are computationally expensive (in watts), you find yourself and the end 
of this process with a big dumb design document that no-one will ever 
want to touch.  Conversely, it isn't good to force programming 
formalisms on concepts unless they fit, but it's fine when they do 
because an instance of an appropriate implemented formalism is something 
that is one step close to something working.