Re: Open source? -> Need to read source to model?

[Rick Riolo]

I think this raises an interesting and difficult question
for the future of agent-based modeling as a standard
technique in scientists' toolkits.
(I decided to move it to swarm-modelling, since that seems 
to be a more appropriate place for this issue.)

If I recall correctly, one of the original ideas behind
Swarm was to come up with a system that would make it
easier for biologists, economists, anthropologists, political
scientists, etc, to do experiments with agent-based models.
Part of the idea was that these people are not
professional computer programmers, and never will be, and
to the extent they have to get in and get dirty with source
codes is a mis-use of their comparative advantage,
ie., they are spending time 'programming' (in the broad
sense of that activity, which includes reading complex source codes)
instead of being biologists, economists or whatever.   
I think this sentiment has led to the recent
(and I think very useful) MAML project, for instance.

On the other hand, one would not expect someone to
be able to make good equation based models if they were
not at least somewhat mathematically skilled.  
So why is it not equally reasonable to expect people
trying to implement computer based models to be at
least somewhat skilled in the art/craft/science of programming?

As many of you know, I have taugh and continue to teach
a modeling course (in swarm) to students from a varitey
of disciplines, most of whom are beginning programmers.
So in some sense you know where my prior biases fall...
(I do make grep my friend!)   ...However...

Its not clear to me where the expectations should
be wrt programming skills and need to read underlying source
for systems like Swarm to be able to use them.
Certainly one needs to be able to read the user-level documentation,
but does the 'typical' modeller really have to read the 
source codes for the underlying tools?   
We don't expect people who write models as difference or 
diffy-equations to be experts in dynamical systems.    
Is asking them to regularly read the source for Swarm the 
equivalent of asking them to be expert programmers?
yes, there may be some cases where they
might need to if they want to do something non-standard,
but should that be the norm, as opposed to the exception?
(just as its the norm to right and use equation-based
models quite usefully, and only sometimes does one need
to dig into the theory for those cases where one is
trying to push what can be typically be done with those
equations).

Well, where am I going with this?  I don't know!
It just struck me as not obvious that all people
using a system like Swarm should be expected to,
or regularly need to, read the source for Swarm.
(as I said, reading documentation is a different question...
which also raises the question of what is adequate
documentation...for another thread...)

So I just thought I'd raise this issue (which I suspect has
been kicked around in these lists before) because
I think the answers are not so obvious (at least not to me),
and the questions are quite deep (e.g., it raises
questions about the appropriate conceptual modeling langauge
for ABMs, and the relationship between that and some
underlying implementation of the basic elements).

I'm sure there is a broad variety of opinions on
this out there in the Swarm community...I'd be
interested in hearing people's reasons for where
they fall on the spectrum.

- r

Rick Riolo                           address@hidden
Center for Study of Complex Systems (CSCS)
4477 Randall Lab                
University of Michigan         Ann Arbor MI 48109-1120
Phone: 734 763 3323                  Fax: 734 763 9267
http://www.pscs.umich.edu/PEOPLE/rlr-home.html

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2000 22:02:34 +0100
From: Ralf Stephan <address@hidden>
Reply-To: address@hidden
To: address@hidden
Subject: Re: Open source?

Benedikt:
> I've had this question come up so many times: "Where are the sources for
> object X?". It is truly bizzare that there are users out there that don't
> have a copy of the source or even the HTML documentation.

We have a saying in German "Those who can read have a clear advantage".
I mean, where is the limit?  You can have nice packages, FTP archives,
FAQs, and even then, people will ask all over again.  And it's not
their fault, very often they were brainwashed in education with the MS 
approach of hiding ASCII (in Germany too, of course).

Evolution in action?
 
> I think essentially that no one should be using this thing without having
> a copy of the source code AND the documentation. Looking at source is
> always the best way to learn. Grep is your friend.

Amen, brother.


ralf
-- 
http://www.in-berlin.de/User/rws/
It's all like keeping two or three ants together.

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