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Chapter 6
What Software Engineering Has to Offer
to Agent-Based Social Simulation

Peer-Olaf Siebers and Franziska Klügl

Abstract In simulation projects, it is generally beneficial to have a toolset that
allows following a more formal approach to system analysis, model design and
model implementation. Such formal methods are developed to support a systematic
approach by making different steps explicit as well as providing a precise language
to express the results of those steps, documenting not just the final model but also
intermediate steps. This chapter consists of two parts: the first gives an overview
of which tools developed in software engineering can be and have been adapted
to agent-based social simulation; the second part demonstrates with the help of
an informative example how some of these tools can be combined into an overall
structured approach to model development.

Why Read This Chapter?
To get to know the tools and techniques that software engineering has on offer when
it comes to taking a more structured approach to model building. This is particularly
useful for larger, collaborative and multidisciplinary projects. Resulting models are
easy to maintain and extend and are easy to communicate (and consequently to
reproduce), even if the models themselves are highly complex.

Introduction

In most, if not all simulation projects, it is beneficial to proceed in a systematic
way, even more for larger, collaborative and multidisciplinary projects. Agent-based
social simulation (ABSS) partially suffers from the fact that despite its increasing

P.-O. Siebers ( )
School of Computer Science, Nottingham University, Nottingham, NG8 1BB, UK
e-mail: pos@cs.nott.ac.uk
F. Klügl
School of Science and Technology, Örebro University, Örebro, Sweden
e-mail: franziska.klugl@oru.se

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017 81
B. Edmonds, R. Meyer (eds.), Simulating Social Complexity,
Understanding Complex Systems, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66948-9_6