Re: one type of agent versus many...

[bleydorf]

Ken Cline wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 26 Sep 1997 address@hidden wrote:
> 
> > Is there any problem with having lots of different kinds of agents
> > instead of just having the catagorization inside of a kind of agent
> > ie:
> > Many: agent A, agent B, agent C, agent D,...
> > One type:  agent X (status A,B,C,D...)
> >
> > Any thoughts?
> 
> Of course, it is more or less what makes sense to you.
> One criteria that I use: is Agent B approx. Agent A with
> different parameter values?  Or does Agent B have a extra
> attribute or functionality that makes it "unique" from
> Agent A?
> 
> If agents A-D can be represented by a single Agent X with
> a "status" attribute the only thing separating them then
> for coding effiency reasons I would think having "one type"
> would be preferable.

I guess the gist of my question is more like this, is it any less
efficent to have 100 agents of type A, 100 of B, 100 of C, 100 of D;
then to have just 400 of X?  Would there be any "big" overhead of
keeping the different types as opposed to just having one type.  If when
it really comes down to it, there will be the same number of agents
reguardless of how its done.  

As to the "status" question, lets say that the different agents will all
have a variety of attributes (right now 7), but later could be many
more.  All the various agents of like type will have the same values for
those attributes, in fact beside their name (type) and the attributes,
they will virtually be identical.  But, to keep all the various
attributes in a single agent X, seems to me to be much more overhead,
atleast in the creation of the agents.  Determining that 100 will have
A-like attributes, 100 will have B-like attributes, etc.  

So, while there will be more programming up front, (basically) copying a
single type of agent and just going in and changing the "hard-wired"
attributes to different values, it seems to me after that initial set-up
there would be less troubles later...

Night,

Brad.

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