[FRIAM] Fwd: ABM

[Robert Holmes]

On 6/2/07, Douglas Roberts <doug at parrot-farm.net> wrote:
>
> <snip>
> [*Footnote from the (or should be) above:  I know people who have written
> applications with no object-oriented technologies at all, using FORTRAN or
> C, (or worse, purely procedural Java) and who claim to have developed an
> ABM.  I contend, that while they may have developed a really neato
> simulation, it isn't an ABM.  Where are the agents?  Rows of an array?
> Elements of a struct?  An array of structs? I really don't think so.


Why? Logically that position doesn't make sense - it seems to confuse the
model with the implementation of the model. For example, Epstein & Axtell's
Sugarscape model is an ABM. If I code it up, does it only remain an ABM if I
code in C++? Does the Sugarscape model suddenly stop being an ABM if I code
it in FORTRAN?

It might be easier to code in one type of language rather than the other,
but that's not the point. ABM-ness is a property of the model, not the code.

Robert
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