Exploring AOP from an OOP Perspective
Rem W. Collier, Se�n Russell and David Lillis
In Proceedings of the 5th International Workshop on Programming Based on Actors, Agents, and Decentralized Control (AGERE! @ SPLASH 2015), AGERE! 2015, pages 25--36, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, 2015. ACM.
Abstract
Agent-Oriented Programming (AOP) researchers have successfully developed a range of agent programming languages that bridge the gap between theory and practice. Unfortunately, despite the in-community success of these languages, they have proven less compelling to the wider software engineering community. One of the main problems facing AOP language developers is the need to bridge the cognitive gap that exists between the concepts underpinning mainstream languages and those underpinning AOP. In this paper, we attempt to build such a bridge through a conceptual mapping between Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) and the AgentSpeak(L) family of AOP languages. This mapping explores how OOP concepts and the concurrent programming concept of threads relate to AgentSpeak(L) concepts. We then use our analysis of this mapping to drive the design of a new programming language entitled ASTRA.