[Modeling] Modeling an Agent Class- register your opinion

[Joaquin Peña]

Hi all:

I think we all agree that interaction between agents can be
IMPLEMENTED inside it's methods. Don't you?

That it is to say, a method m1 of an agent A1 is called and then
it calls a method m2 in an agent A2. Thus, if its role change we
can not delete this call. We can use an if statement based on the
roletype, but what happens if a new roles appear?

Joaquin.

 
> 
> Let's assume that it can be done this way, then, we must 
> consider agents are special case of objects, because the 
> semantics of class is defined as follows. (the following is 
> taken from Jim's email about UML's definition of
> class)
> "-Semantics
> The purpose of a class is to specify a classification of 
> objects and to specify the features that characterize the 
> structure and behavior of those objects."
> 
> The question is, then, "Can agents be objects?" I doubt about 
> it, because the semantics of object has this features defined 
> as a part of UML class'
> semantics: (also taken from Jim's email)
> "Operations of a class can be invoked on an object, given a 
> particular set of substitutions for the parameters of the 
> operation." Does this give object the freedon to refuse 
> invocation of its operation? I think, a characteristics of 
> agents is that "agent can say no to operation invocation". 
> This is also from Jim's work.
> 
> Hong
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "James Odell" <email@jamesodell.com>
> To: "ModelingTC" <modeling@fipa.org>
> Sent: Saturday, June 21, 2003 7:01 PM
> Subject: Re: [Modeling] Modeling an Agent Class- register your opinion
> 
> 
> > On 6/20/03 7:45 AM, "Dr. Hong Zhu" indited:
> >
> > >> When you simply use the word Agent as the class name of 
> the class 
> > >> Agent you can produce a meta model in UML. Using UML as the 
> > >> modelling language does not mean that the behaviour of agents 
> > >> necessarily has
> been
> > >> limited to OO.
> > >>
> > >
> > > I don't think the semantic definition of UML can be 
> interpreted that
> way.
> >
> > And, I am not so sure that it cannot be.  I guess it's time 
> for us all 
> > to demonstrate it one way or another.
> >
> > -Jim
> >
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> 
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