The advent of increasingly complex and dynamic ecosystems, such as digital twins (DT), smart cities and Industry 4.0 and 5.0, has made evident the need to include modeling and simulation (M&S) in the software development life cycle. Such disruptive systems include simulation models in their own architecture (such as DT) or require the use of simulation models to represent the high degree of movement and the multiplicity of interactions that occur between the involved systems. However, when software engineers (particularly the newcomers) need to use M&S in their projects, they often pose themselves an important question: which formalism should I use? In this direction, the main contribution of this paper is the establishment of a preliminary checklist with questions to assist beginners in M&S in choosing the most appropriate paradigm to solve their problems. The checklist is based on three main formalisms: DEVS, System Dynamics and Agent-Based Simulation. A pilot study was carried out and an expert was consulted. The preliminary results show (i) conformance between the suggestion given by the checklist and the formalism selected in the original studies used as input for evaluating the checklist, and (ii) a positive feedback from the expert.

翻译：随着数字孪生（DT）、智慧城市、工业4.0与5.0等日益复杂且动态的生态系统的发展，在软件开发生命周期中纳入建模与仿真（M&S）的需求已日益凸显。此类颠覆性系统或在自身架构中包含仿真模型（如数字孪生），或需借助仿真模型来表征所涉系统间的高度动态性与多重交互作用。然而，当软件工程师（尤其是新手）需要在项目中运用M&S时，他们常面临一个关键问题：应选择何种形式化方法？为此，本文的主要贡献在于建立了一套初步的检查清单，通过系列问题协助M&S初学者选择最适合解决其问题的范式。该清单基于三种主要形式化方法构建：DEVS、系统动力学与基于智能体的仿真。研究开展了试点实验并咨询了领域专家。初步结果表明：（i）检查清单给出的建议与作为清单评估输入的原始研究中实际采用的形式化方法具有一致性；（ii）专家反馈积极。