emergent/swarm/evolutionary systems etc

[Michele Simionato]

"Peter MacKenzie" <peter9547 at btinternet.com> wrote in message news:<c4hjp4$dg6$1 at sparta.btinternet.com>...
> In addition to exams, I also must start a dissertation in July for my
> geography hon B.Sc.  Although I should ideally have found a subject two
> months ago, I've so far lacked any truly appealing project ideas (much to
> the consternation of my advisor).  Since reading 'Emergence', by Steven
> Johnson, and conducting prelimenary research on the matter, I've settled on
> the dissertation title: "Emergence theory as an approach to city design".
> 
> To this goal, I'd like to use computer modeling to simulate ways in which
> the spatial distribution of indicator phenomena in cities (land price/use,
> crime, demographic composition etc) is affected by bottom-up, local area
> rules.  Given that I have only a basic foothold on the language, does
> anybody foresee difficulties for me learning enough to impliment simple and
> experimentally flexible sim-city style simulations (minus fancy graphics and
> llamas) in no more than 2 months (to allow for time to conduct actual
> experiments + field observations etc)?  I would be able to engender aid from
> various staff, and the university library should carry titles on the
> subject.  Failing that, I could do it the old fashioned way and buy a how-to
> book, but I'd like some opinions on the difficulty of the goal from people
> who've already trancended the non-programmer/programmer barrier.

I would suggest you to forget about this project and to spend those two
months in learning the basis of Python. IMO learning a programming language
will do to your mind a far better good than learning a spreadsheet.
Having said so, it is ok if you keep this project in the back of your mind 
while you learn programming, but do not expect you can finish it in a couple
of months starting from scratch, without guidance and not working on it full
time. OTOH, a couple of months is enough to get the basics of programming
(which is not the same as becoming a programmer). I would estimate the time 
to get a minimal understanding of modern programming in one year. Still,
notice that I estimate the time to write your first useful program in Python
in five minutes, so you will get back something from your effort immediately.
This is the nice thing about programming. The bad thing are bugs, that you
will get well before the first five minutes ;)

           Michele Simionato