Software Engineering and Computer Games

3.1. Object-oriented simulations

One of the reasons why computer games are a good kind of programming project is that writing computer games gives you some experience with creating computer simulations of something like real-world processes. Simulation is one of the most important things that we can do with a computer. In a simulation, we set up a model of some real-world system we are interested in. By watching the behavior of the simulation we can gain insights about the real world.

Things that have been simulated include factories, industrial machinery, the stock market, people’s buying behavior, automobile traffic, the formation of stars, nuclear weapons explosions, the spread of disease, the solar system, organic molecules like human DNA, ...