POSE: a Process-Oriented Simulation Environment embedded in SCHEME

Abstract

POSE is part of a research program to explore potential benefits of new software technologies for various modelling paradigms. It is a SCHEME-based queueing network simulator, whose discus sion serves to demonstrate the suitability of symbolic languages and exploratory programming styles for system simulation.

After justifying the use of symbolic languages and an object- oriented approach to model design, basic features of POSE are presented, using a simple example. This is followed by a brief description of the simulator's architecture. A final chapter sum marizes and reflects on our experiences, suggesting that object- oriented simulation environments hosted on powerful personal workstations may well offer major breakthroughs in terms of ef fectiveness and user acceptance. Computational efficiency, while a lesser concern to "investigative simulation," remains unsatisfac tory in simulations used for quantitative predictions. This prob lem may hopefully be overcome through future advances in soft ware and hardware technologies.

Keywords

queueing networks SCHEME simulation envi ronment simulation languages

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