An introduction to SLX [simulation software]

This paper provides introduction to SLX (Henriksen, 1993) for readers who are already familiar with simulation. Comparisons with GPSS/H (Banks, Carson and Sy, 1989; Henriksen and Crain, 1989; Schriber, 1991; and Smith, Brunner and Crain, 1992) are used to provide a frame of reference for describing SLX features. The goal of the SLX project is to produce a simulation system which provides a multiplicity of layers, ranging from the SLX kernel, at the bottom, all the way up to layers which provide graphical model building "without programming." In this paper, only the "lower" layers of SLX are described. Accordingly, this paper will perhaps be of greater interest to simulation software package developers than to end users of simulation software. Six key concepts which underlie the SLX kernel are presented, and SLX's extensibility mechanisms, which facilitate the construction of higher layers from lower layers, are illustrated.