Len Yabloko wrote:
> Do cities emerge or being constructed? (01)
Both. Towns emerged originally as clusters of agents who provided
services to farmers. The value of being in the same place as another
agent was that it increased your probability of "walk-in" business. (02)
Intelligent agents built developments (industrial, residential,
commercial) to take advantage of existing services offered by a town.
In the process, these new developments added agents to the social and
economic fabric of the town. (03)
Antoinette Arsic wrote:
> I would say that cities are physically constructed but they emerge culturally
>and socially. (04)
(and economically) This is the emergent property. But it is enabled by
the fact that the social fabric of the town (and its economy) are
initially open, so that these new agents are free to participate in town
functions that were not originally designed with them in mind. They are
not only consumers; they are also providers. But they can be providers
only because the town was in some way open to their provision. In
particular, they must provide either a new service that the town didn't
know it wanted(!), or be better at providing a service for which the
town already has a provider. (05)
Unlike people, software will never contract for a service it isn't
programmed to want. And software, like company towns, will only allow
competition for a service it needs if it is _designed_ to allow for
competition for that service. Some agent architectures require that
requestors be designed to allow for competition for a service, or that
suppliers be designed to allow for competition. SOA does not make that
requirement on either. But the "discovery" process, when actually used,
does enable requestors to be designed to support competition, simply by
allowing competing suppliers to register and confronting the requestor
with a catalogue. So I take Len's point. Some emergent behavior is
possible _where_ the discovery process is widely used. (06)
(IMO, the value of a "competitive" discovery process, as distinct from a
directory service for preferred suppliers, has yet to be demonstrated.
But we are not so experienced in building simple reliable SOA systems
that we are anywhere near testing the value of competitive discovery.) (07)
-Ed (08)
--
Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@xxxxxxxx
National Institute of Standards & Technology
Manufacturing Systems Integration Division
100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 FAX: +1 301-975-4694 (09)
"The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST,
and have not been reviewed by any Government authority." (010)
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