REPLY Open Source Simulation Software for SD (SD6808)

[SDMAIL Magne Myrtveit]

Posted by  "Magne Myrtveit" <magne at myrtveit.com>

Several people have in this thread advocated the benefits of a common model
format, maybe based on XML.

Let us assume that someone starts creating a standard model format. What
would be considered as "standard" semantics of models?

The different "standard" SD modelling languages do not just have different
*syntax* and some differences in the built-in functions they provide. If
this was the case, both standardization and conversion/translation would be
straight forward (and done long time ago).

However, the modelling languages have big *semantic* differences. This means
that a translation is not possible without conversion. And for some features
it is not even possible to make a conversion at all, unless the software
vendors add features not yet supported on a given platform. [It is easy to
create a long list of critical features that fall into this category]

I think we all agree that at the level of "basic stock-and-flow modelling"
the various modelling languages are semantically quite similar, and a
translation is easy to do. But most non-trivial models make use of
"enhanced" features of the various modelling tools.

How do you plan / envision solving this problem?

Best regards,

Magne Myrtveit
Dynaplan As
Posted by  "Magne Myrtveit" <magne at myrtveit.com>
posting date  Tue, 11 Mar 2008 14:43:44 +0100