From: hipster <hipster@...4all.nl>
Date: 2001-07-20T17:34:03+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:18181] Re: Looking for Ruby programming  exercises

On Fri, 20 Jul 2001  13:00:53 +0900, Dave Thomas wrote:
[snip]
> 
> A classic DES is a queuing simulation (say a bank). Is it better to
> have one line which all the tellers draw from, or a line per teller?
> Better in terms of overall throughput? Better in terms of median wait
> time? etc. These are questions you can answer with simulations.
> 
> You can use them for problems that are closer to home, simulating
> disk-head scheduling algorithms, scheduling algorithms, communications
> buffers and the like.
> 
> And they're just plain fun to play with. Complex behaviors can emerge
> from simple rules (just like with the swarm stuff, but in a different
> way).

FYI: see Leung, C.H.C. "Quantitative Analysis of Computer Systems".
John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 1988. It crosses the bridge between analytic
models and simulation models. Writing a simulation model, I agree, is
a lot of fun. Writing a correct one is, well, even more fun but very
hard indeed. Prepare for some hefty math.

        Michel