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A programming language for service‐oriented computing with mobile agents
Author(s) -
Paulino Hervé,
Lopes Luís
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
software: practice and experience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.437
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1097-024X
pISSN - 0038-0644
DOI - 10.1002/spe.842
Subject(s) - computer science , scripting language , mobile agent , distributed computing , service (business) , programmer , fault tolerance , class (philosophy) , programming language , computer network , software engineering , artificial intelligence , economy , economics
We present M OB , a service‐oriented scripting language, for programming mobile agents. We argue that combining the service‐oriented and mobile agent paradigms provides a very natural model for programming a large class of distributed applications. In M OB , mobile agents in a network simultaneously provide and use services. The service interfaces constitute contracts that bind agents among themselves. The language features static type‐checking to guarantee that contracts are respected at run‐time. Other language features, such as redundant service providers, allow a certain degree of fault‐tolerance by allowing applications to switch servers dynamically in case a failure is detected (e.g. a server crash). For these reasons, the target applications we envision more interesting to develop using M OB are services for networks with highly dynamic, volatile resources or simply highly adaptive, reconfigurable applications for more classical networks. The paper presents M OB and its implementation from an application programmer's and a systems developer's view. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.