Abstract
The research reported in this paper is part of an ongoing effort to explore potential benefits of using new software technologies for various classes of system simulation. Queueing network scenarios have been chosen as the first area, of application. Our experiences in the use of two object-oriented simulators art described, using a simple example.
Pose is a Scheme based queueing network simulator. It demonstrates the suitability of symbolic languages and exploratory programming for system simulation. Some characteristics of window-based and graphical programming environments are then briefly discussed, with reference to a Smalltalk-based simulation tool.
The final chapter suggests that object-oriented simulation languages embedded in interactive modelling environments hosted on powerful workstations may well offer major breakthroughs in terms of user acceptance. The bandwidth of user/tool interfaces should be as wide as possible, drawing on modern techniques for graphical interaction and multi-process systems supporting the ‘desktop’ metaphor. Use of Smalltalk permits quick and easy exploration of design alternatives through rapid prototyping. Embedding such tools in Scheme preserves their functionality while making them more accessible to a wider community. Computational efficiency, while a lesser concern to ‘modelling for insight’, remains unsatisfactory in simulation for quantitative predictions. This problem may hopefully be overcome through future advances in software and hardware technologies.
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Kreutzer, W. (1987). A Modeller’s Workbench: Experiments in Object-Oriented Simulation Programming. In: Bézivin, J., Hullot, JM., Cointe, P., Lieberman, H. (eds) ECOOP’ 87 European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming. ECOOP 1987. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 276. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-47891-4_19
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