Customized library design questions

[Julien]

Greetings to everyone on the list !

My name is Julien Calas ; I'm a french student in software engineering, and I'm currently finishing my masters course as an exchange student in Korea. The graduation project I started a few weeks ago concerns the study, design and prototyping of an artificial life oriented multi-agent library - quite a big task to accomplish, especially considering the fact that I only have 3 months left ;)

The idea I have right now is to build upon Swarm, since it seems to be the most popular and complete environment, and focus it on the more restricted field of social sciences (and probably focus it even more on politics if this proves to be too much of a task), all the while trying to make it as simple as possible for someone in this field, such as a student, who doesn't master so well programming, or who wants to cut down on development time.

So while obviously there are going to be a few (I guess you can say a lot ^_^) cuts made to the project, I'd like to have your ideas on this project, considering all of you probably have much more experience than me in the field.
I just subscribed today to the list so, even though I already browsed some archives, I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this ; should it be otherwise please ignore this post.

Now then, the questionnaire ! If you think this is appropriate discussion for this list, please do feel free to answer to the list, else reply directly to me.
Some of the questions might be redundant, in which case just answer to whichever you want - it's my first try, so I probably forgot or overemphasized a few things. I'm sorry for leaving most questions open, but I thought this what the best way for me not to bias the answers ...

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- What field(s) are you interested in using multi-agent based systems for ?

- How did you discover Swarm ?

- Why are you using it, or do you plan to use it, over another environment ?

- Your opinion of Swarm in its current state ...
(too general, too complex, steep learning curve, adequate, ...)

- What do you think are the biggest burdens one faces when discovering MABS and first trying to run a simulation on one's own ?

- Would you be interested by a library/interface specific to social sciences, or do you already have what you need with Swarm or another library ?

- What if this library was further focused on political science ?

- What would you require from a social sciences library that Swarm or another library doesn't offer ?

- What would you require from a political science library ?

- In terms of non-functional needs (ease of use, evolutivity, ...), what would you ask this library to offer ?

- Which language would be most suited for development for you ?
(Java, XML, C++, specifically designed macrolanguage, ...)

- Which language do you think would be most suited for someone who has little programming knowledge ?

- Would you be willing to receive information concerning the progress of this project ?

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Should you have any other comments please feel free to submit them too ...
Thank you in advance, and have a nice day !

Cheers,

Julien