[Modeling] Modeling an Agent Class- register your opinion

[James Odell]

On 6/20/03 7:52 AM, "Dr. Hong Zhu" indited:

> Just to add to your comments, as an agent, a department not only coordinates
> the employees, but also interacts with other agents in the system, such as
> other departments, and the university, etc. It also have an active
> behaviour. Therefore, it is not just a relation.

In a white-box world, departments do not coordinate employees: employees
coordinate employees.  In this view, "department" is primarily an emergent
structure.  It can be viewed as a first-class entity, but when looking more
deeply, it is formed by the interaction of its underlying entities.  This is
not to belittle the emergent view, because in such structures the resulting
behaviour is greater than the sum of the behavior of the individuals.

-Jim