JSimPlus: a tool for teaching simulation techniques

A plethora of simulation tools exists today covering most simulation needs of both academia and industry. Despite this rich collection, it can be hard to get hold of a simulation tool to teach not only modeling and analysis of certain applications, but also to teach how such a tool is designed, developed, constructed, and improved. JSimPlus is the result of striving after such need. It has evolved and been re-engineered in over several years by adding simple features to a simple tool, Simlib, to create a fully pledged instrument capable of teaching students the nuts and bolts of simulation kernel.Simlib, a simple simulation library provided in the A. Law textbook, has good ability to demonstrate how a simple engine is constructed, upon which complex models could be built. Clearly this tool has number of limitations. With some efforts it is possible to significantly improve this software towards a much practical and professional one.This paper describes the efforts of several groups of students who in a series of steps evolved the software from simple to a very advanced instrument, and changed its programming language from C to C++, Java, and a Web-Based Simulation platform with several repositories, graphical interfaces, and displays. JSimPlus has a discrete event simulation engine and supports applications using the queuing networks simulation models.