On 9/17/2013 11:50 AM, Jack Park wrote:
> I would add to John's message a passing comment that blackboard
> architectures, including Gelernter's tuplespace Linda, qualify as
> coordination mechanisms in societies of agents architectures.
> Blackboards provide an indirect message passing framework, in which
> agents can subscribe, e.g. seti@home, to specific kinds of messages. (01)
Yes. The option of posting messages to a blackboard enables
a message passing system to find links to agents whose identity
is not known to the sender. (02)
But a direct link to a known agent is usually more efficient.
Therefore, the FMF destination field supports both options:
either the address of a known agent or an address of an agent
whose primary duty is to manage a Linda-like blackboard. (03)
But any agent is allowed to provide "added value" by doing
something beyond what the message requests (i.e., "cheat"). (04)
The verbal distinction between "added value" and "cheating"
is an example of the way people praise or deprecate things
by their choice of words. (05)
If you like some kind of encapsulation, you call it a module.
If you don't, you call it a silo. (06)
Re legacy: I also came across the following article: (07)
http://www.crn.com/news/data-center/240161390/ibm-pledges-1-billion-to-linux-effort-to-boost-power-system.htm (08)
IBM pledged a billion dollars to the Linux effort in 2000, and they're
pledging another billion now. (09)
Linux is a legacy from one student's project to build a cheap Unix-like
system. Unix is a legacy from an AT&T project to build a cheap version
of the very big and complex Multics system, which MIT built on special-
purpose hardware from GE, as a follow-on to a system that MIT built on
special-purpose hardware from IBM in the early 1960s. (010)
Today, Linux runs on everything from smartphones (Android) to the
biggest and fastest supercomputers. But you can trace the ideas,
structures, and terminology (i.e., ontology) back to the 1960s. (011)
Moral of the story: Legacy software is too valuable to discard.
If you kill the platform it runs on, it will be reborn on another
platform. If you interoperate with it, you win. If not, you lose. (012)
John (013)
PS: The IBM 704 to 7094 had 36-bit words, but System/360 had 32/64-bit
words. Many IBM customers defected to the GE 635, Univac 1108, and the
Digital PDP-10, all of which had 36-bit words and the old data formats.
Those customers who didn't defect ran 7094 emulators for many years.
The emulators ran concurrently with the new instruction set, and
they could share the same I/O devices. Interoperability! (014)
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