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Stock and Flow (2010)

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Re: Stock and Flow (2010)

#11

Post by Jtsummers »

jacques_chester wrote: post #10
Jtsummers wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may be interested in reading more about system dynamics. There are a number of good books out there: - Thinking in Systems , also by Meadows - Business Dynamics , by Sterman (slowly working through this) - Strategic Modelling and Business Dynamics , by Morecroft - General Systems Thinking , by Weinberg (on Leanpub you can get the PDFs, it's 4 books there, as I recall the first two were published as one book when…

I've found Business Dynamics by Sterman to be the best all-round System Dynamics book in my collection (I have three of the above, excluding Weinberg's). Meadows is interesting and a quick read, but shallow. Morecroft is a thorough read and a decent alternative to Sterman's if you can't get it. But Sterman's really is the best textbook.

I got my copy of Sterman from my sister (who had studied systems engineering at MIT and so had a copy from her coursework there), but at your recommendation from a few years ago.

I worked through (most of) Morecroft because it was available through O'Reilly's online library and I had a subscription through work. I read Meadows specifically because of the leverage points essay, and wanted to see what else she had. It's definitely shallower than the others, but I think a good introduction because of its relative brevity.

Re: Stock and Flow (2010)

#12

Post by foobar_ »

Jtsummers wrote: post #5
foobar_ wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was a beautiful read. After a few link hops from Donella Meadows ... it seems there was a programming language to visualize flows - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DYNAMO_(programming_language) I came across stocks and flows a couple of years back and it certainly changed my thinking. Interestingly this is something we sorta commonly use in backend dashboards to understand the behavior of the system, especially wi…

You may be interested in reading more about system dynamics. There are a number of good books out there: - Thinking in Systems , also by Meadows - Business Dynamics , by Sterman (slowly working through this) - Strategic Modelling and Business Dynamics , by Morecroft - General Systems Thinking , by Weinberg (on Leanpub you can get the PDFs, it's 4 books there, as I recall the first two were published as one book when…

Awesome. Pretty much the only book I partially read on systems thinking was introduction to cybernetics by Ross Ashby.

http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/books/IntroCyb.pdf

Re: Stock and Flow (2010)

#13

Post by greenshackle2 »

alexpetralia wrote: post #2

Relevant essay when thinking about stocks & flows in a system: http://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to...

I've read a lot of "system analysis" / "system dynamics" literature in grad school, and did workshops with practitioners, and my impression is that they suffer a lot from "if you have a hammer".

Business people and ecologists discovered modeling with ordinary differential equations, created their own jargon and tools around it, and decided it is the key to understand everything.

ODEs are a great tool to have in your modelling toolbox, but they're not, like, revolutionary.

To give credit where it's due, they manage to explain simple differential equation systems in accessible terms, and they manage to get people who would otherwise not build, test and think about explicit models at all, to do it to some degree.

But if you're already someone used to thinking with models, this is 101 stuff. My gripe with the discipline is that they barely go beyond the 101 stuff and hype their methodology to high heaven. The field is also permeated by relativist philosophy, or at least, it was 5 years ago when I was keeping up with the System Dynamics Society.

It leaves you in an awkward spot as a discipline if your bread and butter is building models, but you don't think there's an objective truth to test your models against, since truth is just group consensus.

Re: Stock and Flow (2010)

#14

Post by jacques_chester »

Jtsummers wrote: post #11
jacques_chester wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found Business Dynamics by Sterman to be the best all-round System Dynamics book in my collection (I have three of the above, excluding Weinberg's). Meadows is interesting and a quick read, but shallow. Morecroft is a thorough read and a decent alternative to Sterman's if you can't get it. But Sterman's really is the best textbook.

I got my copy of Sterman from my sister (who had studied systems engineering at MIT and so had a copy from her coursework there), but at your recommendation from a few years ago. I worked through (most of) Morecroft because it was available through O'Reilly's online library and I had a subscription through work. I read Meadows specifically because of the leverage points essay, and wanted to see what else she had. It'…

I should ask him for a royalty.

Re: Stock and Flow (2010)

#15

Post by Jtsummers »

jacques_chester wrote: post #14
Jtsummers wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got my copy of Sterman from my sister (who had studied systems engineering at MIT and so had a copy from her coursework there), but at your recommendation from a few years ago. I worked through (most of) Morecroft because it was available through O'Reilly's online library and I had a subscription through work. I read Meadows specifically because of the leverage points essay, and wanted to see what else she had. It'…

I should ask him for a royalty.

Perhaps. She actually gave it to me during her speech at my wedding to demonstrate how big a nerd I am.

Re: Stock and Flow (2010)

#16

Post by foobar_ »

jacques_chester wrote: post #6
foobar_ wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was a beautiful read. After a few link hops from Donella Meadows ... it seems there was a programming language to visualize flows - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DYNAMO_(programming_language) I came across stocks and flows a couple of years back and it certainly changed my thinking. Interestingly this is something we sorta commonly use in backend dashboards to understand the behavior of the system, especially wi…

There are a few startups around trying to web-ify Systems Dynamics. I've been meaning to play with Sheetless: https://sheetless.io/

That seems closed. I just came across this ... https://ncase.me/loopy/ definitely looks fun!

Re: Stock and Flow (2010)

#18

Post by 082349872349872 »

jbranchaud wrote: post #17

Analogous terminology for Stock and Flow are the Garden and Stream metaphors explored in Mike Caulfield's _The Garden and The Stream: A Technopastoral_. https://hapgood.us/2015/10/17/the-garden-and-the-stream-a-te...

recent discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23337759

Re: Stock and Flow (2010)

#19

Post by jbranchaud »

082349872349872 wrote: post #18
jbranchaud wrote: post #17

Analogous terminology for Stock and Flow are the Garden and Stream metaphors explored in Mike Caulfield's _The Garden and The Stream: A Technopastoral_. https://hapgood.us/2015/10/17/the-garden-and-the-stream-a-te...

recent discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23337759

I became aware of both of these articles through Tom Critchlow's writing on Digital Gardens.

In this piece, he references the Garden and Stream concepts, while also adding in his own, Campfires. https://tomcritchlow.com/2018/10/10/of-gardens-and-wikis/

Then in this follow on piece, he touches on Stock and Flow referencing the original article. https://tomcritchlow.com/2019/02/17/building-digital-garden/

Re: Stock and Flow (2010)

#20

Post by te »

foobar_ wrote: post #3
alexpetralia wrote: post #2

Relevant essay when thinking about stocks & flows in a system: http://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to...

That was a beautiful read. After a few link hops from Donella Meadows ... it seems there was a programming language to visualize flows - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DYNAMO_(programming_language) I came across stocks and flows a couple of years back and it certainly changed my thinking. Interestingly this is something we sorta commonly use in backend dashboards to understand the behavior of the system, especially wi…

What is the (spiritual) successor of DYNAMO? Would Modelica be a fit?
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