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Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams: Explorations in Massively Parallel Microworlds (Complex Adaptive Systems)
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Author: Mitchel Resnick
List Price: $18.95
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 0262680939
Publisher: MIT Press (10 January, 1997)
Edition: Paperback
Sales Rank: 91,440
Average Customer Rating: 3.92 out of 5
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Customer ReviewsRating: 3 out of 5
interesting, but describes an old version of the software
This is a book describing the research of a team at MIT using a version of the educational language "Logo". Running in a simple graphical environment which supports multiple parallel operation of code in the same shared space. Write a few lines of code for an "ant", then let 1000 of them loose. The current version of this "StarLogo" system is written in Java, and available as a free download for anyone to play with.The use of Logo is both a strength and a weakness of the approach. The strength is that the code is concise and easy to understand. The weakness is that there is only one source of the software, and anyone wishing to try it is limited to the available download. This would not be such a limitation if the book described the same version, but unfortunately things have moved on a lot since the book was written, and few (if any) of the examples will work without alteration. As well as the development of the StarLogo system, the book covers experiments in emergent behaviour. Typical sections include how parameter and environment changes can affect the growth and development of simulated ant colonies, and a theoretical basis for those "phantom traffic jams" we have all experienced. This book is certainly interesting if you are interested in developing parallel software simulations, or if you are interested in marginal computer languages, but don't expect the code to work without effort.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Invention - on all levels
This book provided the motivating force to write my first, and last, review for Amazon.com. Over the past 5 years since my first reading Mitchel Resnick's Turtles Turmites and Traffic Jams, the book has come up on numerous occasions related to several topics, two of which most basically: 1) Writing style - Resnick's clear, well-researched, simple yet profound style. His background as journalist and inventor enables TT&T to walk a new line between source material and criticism. 2) Content - Resnick's theoretical application of emergent behavior to education is robust; his practical educational tools (starlogo and later, mindstorms) are a fundamentally clear and wondrous collapsing of idea into artifact. I will include this book with few others in my life bibliography.
Rating: 3 out of 5
A fascinating topic, but may leave you wanting more
I picked up this book while browsing the Computer Science section. The first line on the back cover drew me in: "How does a bird flock keep its movements so graceful and synchronized?" Unfortunately, this question (and others similar) was never really answered in the book. Rather than an intellectual or philosophical discussion of how organized behaviors develop from non-centrally-controlled systems in real life, the book seems to focus on why it happens in simplified computer simulations. The book is really about looking at organized behaviors from a decentralized perspective - using computer simulations to aid in this perspective. (Termite mounds, for example, aren't created by a "seed or lead" termite, they're in fact created by the behaviors common to individual termites, and the interaction of those termites with the environment, as is demonstrated in a simplified computer simulation.)The book focuses a great deal on workings of the StarLogo programming language, which is not included but is downloadable (more on this later). The programming language allows users to simulate massively parallel systems. The book includes many code samples, programming notes and descriptions of how the simulations progress at run time. Discussions of resulting organized behaviors lie almost completely within the scope of the software simulations, but are very interesting nonetheless (although it will likely leave you wanting more). After only the first simulation (regarding slime mold), I found myself at the computer to download the software. Which brings me to my next point... You won't find the software at the location specified by the book. It appears that the original StarLogo language was written for the Mac, and was renamed MacStarLogo. (Substitute "macstarlogo" for "~starlogo" in the URL to find the software.) When you get to the Download page, you'll be able to download the software for PC and UNIX as well as for Mac. The PC version (and version 1.1 for Mac, I assume) seems to use a newer or upgraded set of commands, so you'll have some difficulty getting the code in the book to run. The new Java-based interface, though, is very cool - it allows you to place buttons, sliders and other tools to control the simulation and dynamically interact with the program in real time. Excellent for exploring these microworlds!!! The book also discusses a lot about the author's interactions with children while developing StarLogo programs. I found these discussions very interesting, but they seemed to focus on how we like to perceive organized behaviors as centrally controlled (versus individually controlled). As a result, much of the book was about why a non-centralized perspective is important rather than how organization is actually formed from non-centralized communities. Overall it is a very interesting and well-organized book. Only three stars because (1) it wasn't what I expected - perhaps the subtitle would have been more descriptive as "analyzing simple computer simulations where organized behavior results from systems with no centralized control," but I guess that would have been too wordy. And, (2) the software was not easy to find, and it was not fully compatible with the code in the book. (A version of the software compatible with the code in the book shoud be made available - even if it's since been upgraded.) And finally, (3) the book seems to be rushed toward the end. (The last chapter, for example, where the author "looks ahead" is only two pages long.) Overall, it's a great book, and it inspires a lot of thinking, but it left me wanting a bit more...
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