Re: [Swarm-Modelling] Announce: metaABM 1.0.0

[Marcus G. Daniels]

Miles Parker wrote:

> I do not think there is any justification for requiring someone to 
> learn the entire set of a general purpose language's functionality 
> before we will let them loose on any kind of algorithmic explanation 
> for natural phenomenon.
Of course not, but that's also not to say that there aren't cases where 
an algorithmic explanation does require a general purpose programming 
language, if for no other reason than to figure out what domain specific 
`macros' make sense. 

Obviously, once you have well-defined model representations you later 
can automatically transform that representations to a new, more general 
representations.  And I think we can agree that toolkit approaches don't 
force users to compress toward a well-factored set of primitives.  They 
also don't prevent it. 
> Learning, at least as a CS person conceives it, is where we end the 
> current representational capability of metaABM per se, so you've 
> identified an important (current!) boundary.
Using a general purpose programming language, there's the possibility of 
inferring a DSL by having a computer find or refine minimal programs 
that explain some pattern of input and output data.  Ultimately what 
should matter are rules of predictive utility, not pretty stories..

Marcus