AGENT: active logical objects

Abstract

This paper introduces AGENT, a logic programming-based concurrent object-oriented language. An AGENT program is a collection of active objects (agents). Cooperation and synchronization among objects is achieved by message passing. AGENT pro­ vides a flexible way of defining classes of objects, speci­ fying their data members as well as methods. In addition to data members and methods of a traditional object, an active object (agent), has its script. A script specifies some activity performed by the active object. AGENT provides also multiple inheritance as a tool for expressing hierarchical similarities among various agent classes. An AGENT program can be easily translated to the Kernel Language (KL). KL, described in a separate paper, is a logic programming language, based on the notion of communicating sequential logic programs. KL has been designed as a tool for implementing various concurrent logic programming-based systems.