Jack

[Software] The agent oriented software group, (2004) Jack. [Other]

Abstract

JACK is an environment for building, running and integrating commercial-grade multi-agent systems using a component-based approach. JACK is based upon the company's Research and Development work on software agent technologies. The JACK Agent Language is a programming language that extends Java with agent-oriented concepts.

Review

JACK™ is Java based agent platform developed by Agent Oriented Software. It is a commercial product; nevertheless, it can be downloaded from http://www.agent-software.com.au/shared/products/index.html under 60 days software evaluation license. Agents are programmed using JACK Agent Language, which is an extended Java language. There is a huge support for BDI, capabilities, events, planning and team modeling. There is a rich development environment with a set of graphical tools that are used for agent programming in a CASE style. White pages and Yellow pages services are supported. Messaging is based on a custom message passing of Java objects. Nevertheless, an add-on for FIPA ACL communication is available. Ontology is supported. Mobility is not. There is an excellent debugging support. For example, graphically developed plans are traced and debugged in runtime in the same graphical representation. Also, it is possible to use repeatable agent simulations. Java to/from C++ object mobility is available. It is possible to use a WebBot framework for connection from agents to web applications.

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