Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!pacbell!pacbell.com!ucsd!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!radar!cadillac!vaughan@mcc.com
From: vaughan@mcc.com (Paul Vaughan)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: discrete-event simulation in C++
Message-ID: <10629@cadillac.CAD.MCC.COM>
Date: 23 Aug 90 14:25:18 GMT
References: <2533@ryn.esg.dec.com> <5606@abaa.UUCP> <1990Aug22.171319.12499@ida.liu.se>
Sender: news@cadillac.CAD.MCC.COM
Reply-To: vaughan@mcc.com (Paul Vaughan)
Organization: MCC VLSI CAD Program
Lines: 28
In-reply-to: mip@IDA.LiU.SE (Mikael Patel)


	Discrete event simulation should be done in SIMULA, the grandfather of
	object-oriented programming languages. What you need is classes and
	COROUTINES to make life easy for you! C++ has only classes. Try looking
	at DEMOS. Its a nice simulation package written in Simula-67 that is very
	easy to use and generates all the statistics you need without you
	having to implement random functions, histograms, etc. There is a text
	book; G.M. Birtwistle, Discrete Event Modelling on Simula, Macmillan, 
	1979, ISBN 0-333-23881-8. Simula compilers for most modern machines
	(workstations, pc, macintosh, etc) are available.

Not to knock SIMULA, but you can get all these things and more in C++.
For instance, ATT distributes its tasking library (coroutines) and
there should be a tasking package in libg++ soon.  Libg++ has a choice
of random stream generators and about every distribution you could
need.  It also has classes for recording statistics, histograms, etc.
You can get plotters (notably Dag Bruck's plotter in the InterViews
contrib library) and all sorts of useful classes in the public domain
or in libraries.  I'm not sure what SIMULA does in the way of dynamic
type checking, but you can use the NIHL stuff to accomplish that in
C++.

So, there certainly is a choice these days.



 Paul Vaughan, MCC CAD Program | ARPA: vaughan@mcc.com | Phone: [512] 338-3639
 Box 200195, Austin, TX 78720  | UUCP: ...!cs.utexas.edu!milano!cadillac!vaughan