Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sm.unisys.com!randvax!leverich
From: leverich@randvax.UUCP (Brian Leverich)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Grand Challenges:  Expert System Shells replace COBOL
Summary: Knowledge Based Simulation replaces SIMSCRIPT
Message-ID: <1722@randvax.UUCP>
Date: 2 Oct 88 16:58:31 GMT
References: <123@feedme.UUCP> <17736@glacier.STANFORD.EDU> <1717@randvax.UUCP> <1680@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>
Reply-To: leverich@rand-unix.UUCP (Brian Leverich)
Organization: RAND Corp., Santa Monica, CA
Lines: 41

In article <1680@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert
Cockton) writes:
>
>I vote ES shells the achievement of the decade for:
>
>	   avoiding CS snobbery and turning out restricted natural
>	   language end-user programming languages which the untrained
>	   user will pick up and write applications in.  Shells may be
>	   the first step in bringing some form of programming to the
>	   masses (but remember that adventure games got there first
>	   with restricted natural language).
>

Yup.  Now I have a nomination for the nth (probably not second or third,
but up there...) most significant _real_ contribution of AI, again in the
vein of providing new programming tools: knowledge-based simulation
languages.

Large simulations have traditionally been exceedingly costly to design,
debug, and extend, largely because the Fortran or even Simscript code
of the models isn't the least bit isomorphic with the physical system being
modeled.  Modeling trucks moving brainlessly around on a road network was
hard; modeling a multi-mode transportation system where management was
using heuristics to pursue cost-minimization and other goals was essentially
impossible.

Enters the object-oriented message-passing paradigm.  All of the sudden
individual trucks become "trucks" in the model (rather than rows in a
matrix), managers become "managers", and "managers" and "trucks" interact
by exchanging English-like messages rather than by changing entries in
some arbitrary set of matrices.  Design, debug, and extension is much
easier.  No hype - I've used ROSS (RAND's KBSim tool) to build some 4000+
lines of code simulations.

A good bet is that this object-oriented message-passing stuff is going to
have a considerable impact upon the simulation community.
-- 
  "Simulate it in ROSS"
  Brian Leverich                       | U.S. Snail: 1700 Main St.
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