Re: Questions on SWARM

[glen e. p. ropella]

>   I'm currently working on the evaluation of SWARM for our 
> Tools Evaluation Project at NRaD, San Diego, CA. I have some 
> questions about SWARM:
> 
> 1. What tool is Swarm integrated with?

Swarm is "integrated with" (i.e. cannot be run without) an 
underlying unix platform, X, GCC/Objective-C, Tcl/Tk, BLT, and
libtclobjc.

> 2. What life-cycle stage(s) does Swarm support?

What does this mean?

> 3. What is the most likely application area for Swarm?

Any *system* that can be simulated or modelled as an interactive
coevolving multi-agent system.  This includes but is not limited
to systems where the agents themselves evolve and/or are systems
in themselves.

> 4. Who is its current users?

Mostly researchers who are interested in the kinds of systems 
listed above.  These include academic, industrial, and military
researchers.

> 5. Are there updates expected (eg. final release)?

No "final" release is expected.  On the contrary, many, many, many,
more releases and improvements are expected.

> 6. Will the development or support of Swarm continue in the next 3 years?

Yes.  However, it is unknown what form or in what capacity that
development and support will take.

> 7. What is the estimate of person-years in development?

So far?  I'd say 8.5 man years have been put into it so far.
This includes the design phase, during which there was no actual
source code.  The time of development of the actual source code
has been ~3.5 man-years.  Mind you, my estimate is not "the official
word."  I've only been here for a few months and would need to do
a little research to find out how many actual man-hours were spent
working on Swarm, proper.  The people who've developed it have other
jobs!  So, the numbers I've given may be over-estimates.

> 8. Would you like to have a copy of our Evaluation form?

That depends.  What would a "good" evaluation do for us?  Why do we
care about this evaluation?  These are not intended to be harsh
questions, mind you.  (I, personally, come from a CMM level 2 software
organization and am fully aware of what good software engineering can
do for a piece of software.  We were working on being certified level
3 when I took a leave of absence to come to SFI.)  But, in order for
us to spend any serious effort on something like this, we need
justification.

glen