[FRIAM] Fwd: ABM

[Marcus G. Daniels]

Robert Howard wrote:
> The impediments (the constraints and rules) of a programming language are
> there deliberately by design. They are the benefits. Among many other
> things, OO deliberately impedes a programmer from looking into the scope of
> objects unless specifically declared. This may be seen as an impediment to
> the programmer, who might just love to be able to bang anything out on the
> keyboard, but it is marketed as a long-term benefit to other programmers who
> later have to read the code.
>   
Sorry, I thought it was clear from context that I was talking about `as 
applied to modeling', and this notion of search instead of how to 
engineer something with an given goal.   It's not implied that the code 
will be shared with anyone.  Often a paper describing the crucial 
aspects of the simulation would be published and the code would be 
discarded or collect bitrot.

It's an impediment if the language or framework or methodology being 
used forces a modeler commit to things they do not know, especially if 
those commitments are not obvious and not benign assumptions.  

I realize that starting from a blank slate with a general purpose (let's 
say OO) language also doesn't ensure such commitments will not be made, 
because are some basic mechanics needed to do simulations at all, and 
there are good ways to implement them and more bad ways.  Starting from 
scratch, the bias is toward whatever is easy, not to facilities that are 
best suited to understand the problem.  Starting from a framework, the 
bias is toward whatever templates happen to do, and whatever the 
conventional wisdom suggests.  Tradeoffs.