From: John A Eikenberry
Subject: ADVICE: Dev. Env. for Software Agents?
Date: 
Message-ID: <5job9n$hpb$1@cronkite.cc.uga.edu>
Hello,

	I am in the preliminary stages of my masters thesis in AI (I'm
still researching and making design notes).  The goal of my thesis is
to create a _usable_ intelligent software agent system. It will
consist of the framework for the agents and a limited subset of the
potential agents (to keep it doable). The framework should encompass
(at least potentially) such things as: information filtering (WWW,
email, newsgroups), file retrieval (FTP), scheduling, etc. I also hope
to be able to keep the framework open to the addition of mobile agents
at some point in the future.

	Now then, I am considering which development environment
(language/implementation) would best serve my needs. It would need to
have support (libraries or modules) for those capabilities that would
allow the features I mentioned (httpd,ftp,tcp,etc.), as I don't really 
have the time to develop these and my system. It would also need to 
run on the platform I'm developing on/for, which would be Linux.

	I have quite a bit of experience with lisp (& scheme), prolog,
C, and perl, and a little experience with Obj-C and Java. I _really_
would prefer to use a functional language on this project as I
understand them best and think they would be most appropriate. I've
been looking at different scheme implementations mostly (I wanted 
something fairly small), but I am having a hard time finding an 
implementation of scheme with support for all the capabilities I need. 

(I know perl has all these capabilities, but I really don't like perl
for anything more than short scripts and cgi -- I'm not a big fan
of procedural languages in general).

	I am looking for suggestions/pointers. Any help would be greatly
appreciated. Also, please feel free to ask for elaboration or additional
information. 

Thanks,

--

John Eikenberry
(···@ai.uga.edu)
______________________________________________________________
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order
 will deserve neither and lose both."
					 --B. Franklin

From: Rob Jasper 237-6856
Subject: Re: ADVICE: Dev. Env. for Software Agents?
Date: 
Message-ID: <stg1wf591d.fsf@blueberry.ca.boeing.com>
In article <············@cronkite.cc.uga.edu> ···@bob.coe.uga.edu (John A Eikenberry) writes:

  >From: ···@bob.coe.uga.edu (John A Eikenberry)
  >Summary: Request for Advice
  >Keywords: intelligent,agent,advice,functional
  >Newsgroups: comp.lang.scheme,comp.lang.functional,comp.lang.lisp,comp.ai
  >Date: 24 Apr 1997 19:11:51 GMT
  >Organization: The University of Georgia
  >Xref: xyzzy comp.ai:6538 comp.lang.functional:1754 comp.lang.lisp:5367 comp.lang.scheme:3992
  >Path: xyzzy!uunet!in3.uu.net!144.212.95.13!nntprelay.mathworks.com!news.mathworks.com!gatech!bscclab.bls.com!atglab.bls.com!cssun.mathcs.emory.edu!cronkite.cc.uga.edu!bob!jae
  >Lines: 45
  >X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2]
  >
  >Hello,
  >
  >	I am in the preliminary stages of my masters thesis in AI (I'm
  >still researching and making design notes).  The goal of my thesis is
  >to create a _usable_ intelligent software agent system. It will
  >consist of the framework for the agents and a limited subset of the
  >potential agents (to keep it doable). The framework should encompass
  >(at least potentially) such things as: information filtering (WWW,
  >email, newsgroups), file retrieval (FTP), scheduling, etc. I also hope
  >to be able to keep the framework open to the addition of mobile agents
  >at some point in the future.
  >
  >	Now then, I am considering which development environment
  >(language/implementation) would best serve my needs. It would need to
  >have support (libraries or modules) for those capabilities that would
  >allow the features I mentioned (httpd,ftp,tcp,etc.), as I don't really 
  >have the time to develop these and my system. It would also need to 
  >run on the platform I'm developing on/for, which would be Linux.
  >
  >	I have quite a bit of experience with lisp (& scheme), prolog,
  >C, and perl, and a little experience with Obj-C and Java. I _really_
  >would prefer to use a functional language on this project as I
  >understand them best and think they would be most appropriate. I've
  >been looking at different scheme implementations mostly (I wanted 
  >something fairly small), but I am having a hard time finding an 
  >implementation of scheme with support for all the capabilities I need. 
  >
  >(I know perl has all these capabilities, but I really don't like perl
  >for anything more than short scripts and cgi -- I'm not a big fan
  >of procedural languages in general).
  >
  >	I am looking for suggestions/pointers. Any help would be greatly
  >appreciated. Also, please feel free to ask for elaboration or additional
  >information. 

You might try looking at:

http://www.seattleu.edu/~vmckim/kaos/kaos.htm

  >
  >Thanks,
  >
  >--
  >
  >John Eikenberry
  >(···@ai.uga.edu)
  >______________________________________________________________
  >"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order
  > will deserve neither and lose both."
  >					 --B. Franklin
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------
Rob Jasper                  "Never speak more clearly than you think"
(206) 237-6856             
(206) 234-5775 (Fax)         -- Jeremy Bernstein
P.O. Box 3707 M/S 6H-WT     
Seattle, WA 98124	    
···············@boeing.com   
From: DA
Subject: Re: ADVICE: Dev. Env. for Software Agents?
Date: 
Message-ID: <5jr1is$q5p@sol.sun.csd.unb.ca>
John A Eikenberry (···@bob.coe.uga.edu) wrote:
: Hello,

: 	I am in the preliminary stages of my masters thesis in AI (I'm
: still researching and making design notes).  The goal of my thesis is
: to create a _usable_ intelligent software agent system. It will
: consist of the framework for the agents and a limited subset of the
: potential agents (to keep it doable). The framework should encompass
: (at least potentially) such things as: information filtering (WWW,
: email, newsgroups), file retrieval (FTP), scheduling, etc. I also hope
: to be able to keep the framework open to the addition of mobile agents
: at some point in the future.

: 	Now then, I am considering which development environment
: (language/implementation) would best serve my needs. It would need to
: have support (libraries or modules) for those capabilities that would
: allow the features I mentioned (httpd,ftp,tcp,etc.), as I don't really 
: have the time to develop these and my system. It would also need to 
: run on the platform I'm developing on/for, which would be Linux.

: 	I have quite a bit of experience with lisp (& scheme), prolog,
: C, and perl, and a little experience with Obj-C and Java. I _really_
: would prefer to use a functional language on this project as I
: understand them best and think they would be most appropriate. I've
: been looking at different scheme implementations mostly (I wanted 
: something fairly small), but I am having a hard time finding an 
: implementation of scheme with support for all the capabilities I need. 

: (I know perl has all these capabilities, but I really don't like perl
: for anything more than short scripts and cgi -- I'm not a big fan
: of procedural languages in general).

: 	I am looking for suggestions/pointers. Any help would be greatly
: appreciated. Also, please feel free to ask for elaboration or additional
: information. 

: Thanks,

: --

: John Eikenberry
: (···@ai.uga.edu)
: ______________________________________________________________
: "A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order
:  will deserve neither and lose both."
: 					 --B. Franklin
From: Rainer Joswig
Subject: Re: ADVICE: Dev. Env. for Software Agents?
Date: 
Message-ID: <joswig-ya023180002604972242000001@news.lavielle.com>
In article <············@cronkite.cc.uga.edu>, ···@bob.coe.uga.edu (John A
Eikenberry) wrote:

> potential agents (to keep it doable). The framework should encompass
> (at least potentially) such things as: information filtering (WWW,
> email, newsgroups), file retrieval (FTP), scheduling, etc. I also hope
> to be able to keep the framework open to the addition of mobile agents
> at some point in the future.

...

>         I am looking for suggestions/pointers. Any help would be greatly
> appreciated. Also, please feel free to ask for elaboration or additional
> information. 

Not really small ;-), but how about the Common Lisp Hypermedia Server (CL-HTTP)
from John C. Mallery (MIT AI Lab)? Has quite some reusable code
(like HTTP 1.1 server and client).

Can run with Franz's Allegro Common Lisp 4.3 under Linux
(Also runs on LispWorks/Unix, MCL/MacOS, Genera/Symbolics, ...). 
You can get ACL 4.3 for Linux from Franz for free for noncommercial
use.

-- 
http://www.lavielle.com/~joswig/
From: Sverker Janson
Subject: Re: ADVICE: Dev. Env. for Software Agents?
Date: 
Message-ID: <SVERKER.97May2100021@scheutz.sics.se>
In article <············@cronkite.cc.uga.edu> ···@bob.coe.uga.edu
  (John A Eikenberry) writes:
> The goal of my thesis is to create a _usable_ intelligent software
> agent system.  ...  I am considering which development environment
> (language/implementation) would best serve my needs.

There exist several useful Internet libraries for various Prolog
implementations.  For example, if you would like to try using SICStus
Prolog with a pre-alpha version of the forthcoming SICStus Internet
Components libraries, please drop me a note.

--Sverker
--
Sverker Janson				   E-mail ·······@sics.se
Swedish Institute of Computer Science	   Phone  +46 8 752 1572
Box 1263, S-164 28 KISTA, Sweden	   Mob    +46 70 544 3354
URL http://www.sics.se/~sverker	   	   Fax    +46 8 751 7230