I’ve been obsessed lately with reading about Agent Oriented Programming (AOP). I’m fascinated about the concept of making objects autonomous and capable of responding to environmental changes, rather than predefining what they will and will not do (as opposed to what they can and cannot do).

It is interesting, for me, to note that AOP and Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) started to gain momentum around the same time, and yet the interest, and advancements, in SOA quickly outdistanced those for AOP.

In my opinion, this is because the practical applications for AOP are minimal, while the concepts of SOA can quickly and easily be grasped and implemented in many business environments.

I can’t really find any white papers from someone who’s actually implemented a project with this kind of architecture, so it all seems stalled in the theoretical phase still. Of course, I can’t think of a project that I’m working where we could use this.

I still find it fascinating, though.

What Is An Agent?
Properties of Agents
Agent Oriented Software Engineering
A Taxonomy for Autonomous Agents
Jam! Agent Architecture