Agent0(ID:8162/)Related languages
References: Extract: Introduction Introduction Yoav Shoham has proposed a new programming paradigm (AOP) based on a societal view of computation. The key idea is to build computer systems as societies of agents and the central features include (i)agents are reactive, autonomous, concurrently executing computer processes; (ii)agents are cognitive systems, programmed in terms of beliefs, goals, and so on; (iii)agents are reasoning (internally-motivated) entities, specified in terms of logic; (iv)agents communicate via speech acts. Since the presentation of AOP, agent based computing has been hailed as "the new revolution in software ''[6] because agent-based systems have advantages in dealing with openness, where components of the system arc not known in advance, can change over time, and are highly heterogeneous (in that they are implemented by different people, at different times, using different problem solving paradigms). In addition, agent based systems have natural metaphor, can deal with problems such as distribution of data, control, expertise or resources and integrate legacy system by adding an agent wrapper, etc.. However, the construction of large-scale embedded software systems demands the use of design methodologies and modeling techniques that support abstraction, inheritance, modularity, and other mechanisms for reducing complexity and preventing error. Unfortunately, so far there has been few such researches in agent-oriented methodologies. If multi-agent systems are to become widely accepted as a basis for large-scale applications, adequate agent-oriented methodologies (AOM) will be essential tgl. Perhaps foremost amongst the methodologies that have been developed for the design, specification, and programming of conventional software systems are various Object-oriented approaches. They have achieved a considerable degree of maturity, and a large community of software developers familiar with their use now exists. At the same time, the OO design and development environment is well supported by diagram editors and visualization tools. But OO methodologies are not directly applicable to agent systems--agents are usually significantly more complex than typical objects, both in their internal structures and in the behaviors they exhibit. In order to construct a complete methodology for AOP, one of the essential things is to develop a programming language because agent-oriented language and the implemented architectures of agents decide about the usefulness of AOP in the applications. In this paper, we try to center upon the language problem, by providing a computable programming language--SPLAW, for BDI agent. BDI agents are systems that are situated in a changing environment, receive continuous perceptual input, and take actions to affect their environment, all based on their internal mental state. Beliefs, desires, and intentions are the three primary attitudes and they capture the informational, motivational, and decision components of an agent, respectively ll't°l. SPLAW is a programming language based on a restricted first-order logic. The behavior of an agent is dictated by the programs written in SPLAW; the beliefs, desires, and intentions of agents are not explicitly represented as modal formulas, but written in SPLAW. The current state of an agent, which is a model of itself, its environment, and other agents, can be viewed as its current belief state; states that an agent wants to bring about based on its external or internal stimuli can be viewed as desires; and the adoption of plans to satisfy such stimuli can be viewed as intentions. We just take a simple specification language as the execution model of an agent and then ascribe the mental attitudes of beliefs, desires, and intentions from an external viewpoint. In our opinion, this method is likely to have a better chance of unifying theory and practice. in ACM SIGPLAN Notices 33(01) January 1998 view details |