[Modeling] Modeling an Agent Class- register your opinion

[f.tolman]

Hi there,

Sorry for being not too well informed with the subject yet (entered the list
a couple of days ago) and for maybe asking boring questions. Just say so and
I will be silent again ;-/

In my field of research we are trying to use agent technology to build
virtual actors in the building and construction industry. For example a
Virtual Architect, Virtual Adviser, Virtual Cost Engineer, etc. Such virtual
actors can be consulted by humans and other virtual actors. When I think of
such a concept it does not seem to match to the simple UML class. At the
other hand it also does not seem to fit too well with the agent concept, as
in this discussion agents seem to be small (and beautiful?). A Most
important parts of a Virtual Architect can be described using models of UML
classes, relations, constraints, properties and methods. Some parts, maybe
on a meta level, can be desrcibed by agent concepts. So the question is of
course: is there agreement over the question which types of agents are in
scope, and which not? And next: an agent that performes its roles is an
occurrence, but does that mean that its behaviours and such can not
described by a type-like something (class, template,..)?

Regards

Frits Tolman
TU-Delft, The Netherlands

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "James Odell" <email@jamesodell.com>
To: "ModelingTC" <modeling@fipa.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2003 7:21 PM
Subject: [Modeling] Modeling an Agent Class- register your opinion


> Hi all,
>
> On 6/12/03 9:54 AM, "Dr. Hong Zhu" indited:
> > Should we state that
> >
> > AUML members = UML object + AUML agents + <other instance-level stuff> ?
> >
> > That is, the left hand-side should be AUML rather than UML.
> >
> > Am I right?
>
> Yes, that makes better sense.
>
> 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?
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> Jim
>
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