Before we can understand a forest, we must first learned about tree. 
So, what constitutes an “Event”?
An Event in computer software is an action which can be initiated either by the user, a device such as a timer or Keyboard (computing), or even by the operating system. Developers of the software may choose to ignore or handle certain types of events with event handlers which are relevant to the program. The events are managed by a event-driven server, which connects the clients that generate events with the handlers that provide the required function.
An Event Model, on the other hand, is a programming paradigm commonly used in building graphical user interfaces. For example, the Delegate Event Model may be divided into three entities:
- a control, which is the event source
- consumers, also called listeners, that receive the events from the source
- interfaces (in the broader meaning of the term) that describe the protocol by which every event is to be communicated
The model also requires that:
- every listener must implement the interface for the event it wants to listen to (done at programming time)
- every listener must register with the source, to declare its desire to listen to some particular event (done at runtime)
- every time the source generates an event, it communicates it to the registered listeners, following the protocol of the interface
Sometimes, terms like Event-Driven Programming and Event-Based Programming are also used, which may further the confusion.
These are, of course, related to the larger Information Theory and how data are being model in the system (Data Modeling).
The effects of events have been examined by organizational psychologists through the lens of Affective Events Theory (AET): a model to identify how events at work could affect a worker’s emotions and moods, which in turn influenced job performance and job satisfaction.
Actor Network Theory looked at the relationships between actors within a social network (but did not consider events as an important “glue”). Perhaps I could look into that area. Whereas, Discrete Event Smulation viewed the operation of a system as being represented as a chronological sequence of events. Each event occurs at an instant in time and marks a change of state in the system.
Management Science has long been using event-based, activity-based, process-based, and three-phase approaches to do computer simulation; as denoted by the availability of a textbook, Computer Simulation in Management Science, currently in 5th edition (Pidd, 2004). The three-phase approach has been used by a number of commercial simulation software packages. Of course, from the user’s point of view, the specifics of the underlying simulation method are generally hidden.
[N.B. I guess I should not be surprised, but a search on Amazon using “Computer Simulation in Management Science” as keywords, actually turned up quite a bit of useful titles.
