[Modeling] Modeling an Agent Class- register your opinion

[Marc-Philippe Huget]

Hello Jim and all,

James Odell wrote:

> So  everybody, are we absolutely sure that Class cannot be used for Agents?
> I know how that Giovanni and Paola think that objects are evil :-)  --
> thanks to their interesting paper.  But, what about the rest of you?  Are
> *any* the features of Class unusable for agents?   If so, which ones?  If
> there are not anyt, then perhaps Class can be the supertype of AgentClass;
> otherwise, we should use Classifier as the supertype?
>
> Perhaps we should get a sense from those Modeling TC members that feel this
> is important.  Gerd? Hong? Renato? Misty?  Marc-Philippe?  Bernard?
> Radovan?  Anyone else?

Sorry to take the discussion only now, I was away for CEEMAS

Since first, I proposed class as support for agent design, I can't say the
opposite now, I still believe that classes can offer a good support for our
problem, I clarify my mind and particularly these two levels I proposed, the
idea was to design a specific element according a specific formalism then
describing this element as classes and objects, that is to say translating
from a certain formalism to UML classes. Formalisms ensure that everybody can
understand correctly the element to be designed and classes ensure that code
generation is "doable".

Cheers,
Marc-Philippe

--
Marc-Philippe Huget

Agent Applications, Research and Technology Group
Department of Computer Science
University of Liverpool
Chadwick Building, Peach Street
L69 7ZF Liverpool
United Kingdom

email: mph@csc.liv.ac.uk
http://www.csc.liv.ac.uk/~mph