Starlogo

Starlogo is a computer language aimed at understanding decentralized and/or distributed systems.

Description

Starlogo is a computer language aimed at understanding decentralized systems. Such systems,like the whole life, ecosystems, societies, markets, and other social science phenomena, not forgetting our own brain, are characterized by the lack of any centralized process, any order coming from "Above": their working is conditioned only by the behavior of multiple agents interacting continuously: they are, in the truest meaning of the word, "p2p" systems. But our logic, our understanding is facing an obstacle: it is hard for us to see how these systems work. The result of a collective behavior is frequently unpredictable, counter-intuitive.Having noticed this, Mitchel Resnick, of MIT, tried to create an intellectual tool helping any of us to increase our understanding of these mysterious phenomena.

Starlogo is not, therefore, a computer language like the others: it is not aimed at creating applications which may be of use by professionals. Neither it is aimed at experts in economy or ecology, or mathematicians working in computer simulations: it is a tool for everybody, and especially for the children (Starlogo is in fact an evolution of the old Seymour Papert's computer language for kids, Logo). its only goal is to make us understand hard notions such as collective behavior, emergence, collective intelligence (the last versions of Starlogo seem to go farther than this pure intellectual endeavour and now include some elements of game programming: something the children will certainly not complain about!). The "microworld" of Starlogo looks like a screen where various agents, the turtles, move and do different actions. The turtles have some parameters (for instance, "energy", "age" etc.) Turtles can interact between themselves or with "patches", which represent the "resources" of this world.

On many points, Starlogo is an epistemological breakthrough. Outside its stated goal, it promotes some other revolutionary concepts:

1) It implies the idea of constructionism: the idea that people may learn better not be reading or listening something about a given topic, but by building stuff. Resnick is a big proponent of constructionism. After Starlogo, he created "programmable logo bricks" which were the root of the famous "lego mindstorms"

2) the idea that in order to think or express ideas, human language or writing doesn't suffice anymore: we have to use some new tools born from the computer revolution: as such, this is an application of the Sapir-Whorf-Korzybski, especially as modified by Douglas engelbart ("neo-whorfian hypothesis"): the idea that language may influence our thought, and that, in order to think differently, we may have to use new language, new interfaces.

More Information

All these softwares are in java and freely downloadable, but they are not "open source".

Starlogo site

URL = http://education.mit.edu/starlogo/

Starlogo TNG

URL = http://education.mit.edu/starlogo/

the new version of Starlogo, using graphic programming (no more instructions to write), and including 3d and elements of game programMing

Netlogo

URL = http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/

a clone of starlogo which includes some nice additional features (including 3D and some ideas from game programming , as in starlogo TNG)