Toward Interaction-Oriented Programming

Second International Conference on Multiagent Systems

Volume

Second International Conference on Multiagent Systems

Contents

Although much progress has been made in agent theory and practice, bottlenecks remain in the construction of complex multiagent systems. We introduce interaction-oriented programming (lOP) as an a-proach to orchestrate the interactions among agents. As envisioned, lOP is more tractable and practical than general agent programming, especially in settings where the internal details of autonomously developed agents are hidden. By enabling declarative specification and enactment of agent interactions, IOP can channel the intellectual energies of designers into the most amenable and effective design tasks. Our preliminary approach--implemented in an actor language--formally specifies certain interactions, and executes them in a distributed manner.