Re: Lurker

[John A. Lopez]

glen e. p. ropella wrote:
> 
> I wanted to try to smoke out some more lurkers, if possible [grin].
> 
> There seems to be about 4 classes of users on swarm-support:
> 1) those who are interested, but haven't tried to use Swarm, yet,
> 2) those who have tried, minimally, and didn't spend much time
>    trying to get Swarm installed, but are still interested,
> 3) those who have successfully installed Swarm and played with
>    the provided demos, but haven't made their own models, and
> 4) those who are actively using Swarm
> 
> (#4 could probably be divided into users who are using modified
> versions of the demos and users who have created their own apps
> from scratch...)
> 
> Now, as far as the mailing list is concerned, we probably have lurkers from 
> all 4 classes.  (I'm defining "lurker" as "one who posts less than once in, 
> say, 4 months.)  In as much as we have "discussion" on this list (as opposed 
> to posts of stack traces and on-line debugging sessions), that's quite 
> understandable.  There simply aren't enough issues raised that are of 
> importance to the high-level use of Swarm to warrant more discussion from 
> lurker types 3 & 4.  Of course, types 1 & 2 will naturally be reticent about 
> posting because they feel that the list is primarily for *users* of Swarm 
> (and how can one be a *user* if it's not even installed, yet).
> 
But, it's precisely these higher level discussions we will need to see
here before we can ever consider splitting the list into an
"installation/mechanics" list and a "modelling/theory" list.  And
members of all four of the above classes can engage in the latter.
> 

Glen,

Just getting the time to reply to the Lurker inquiry. I fit into
catagory 1 - haven't used it yet because I'm not literate in objective C
or Unix (MkLinux) OS in general. I've been using a VOOP language for
some simple GAs and CAs. 

As an archaeologist, just getting past the installation process for the
OS, then Swarm installation has been very difficult. I suppose one
reason for my Lurking is my concern with the degree of hand-holding
someone like me requires. If a Mac or Mac-like interface version were
available (on any OS), with a point and click means to create schedules,
structure objects, and define their states, I'm sure more social
scientists like myself would be active in the higher-level discussions
you want.

Thank you, John