Moving forward with developing a software agent server

Back in the middle of January I ruminated about the possibility that after 15 years of thought and research, maybe I was finally on the verge of being ready to actually make some forward progress with developing a software agent server. About a week later I started writing some serious code in Java and two months later I now have a preliminary working version of an agent server. It is still far from finished and I would not want anybody to actually start trying to use it, but I do have open source code and a downloadable Java zip file up on github. I call it "the Base Technology Agent Server – Stage 0." Call it pre-alpha quality. after I get some preliminary feedback from some people, fill in some gaps, and finish some documentation, then I will officially make it public. For now, people can actually take a peek if they are adventurous enough:

 

https://github.com/jack-krupansky-BT/Agent-Server-Stage-0

 

I hope to get the introductory doc and tutorial in at least marginally usable shape within a week or so.

-- Jack Krupansky

My notes from the EntConnect 2012 conference

In case you were unable to attend the EntConnect 2012  conference out in Denver, CO last weekend, I have published my notes.

 

The HTML version is here.

 

The more readable and printable PDF version is here.

 

My personal web page for the 2012 conference is here.

 

My personal web page for the upcoming (in a year) EntConnect 2013 conference is here.

 

Actually, I have decided to withdraw from the conference. I still think it is an interesting conference and provides a great reunion opportunity for former Midnight Engineering readers (yes, Bill actually attended portions of the conference), but other than that reunion aspect, the conference is growing rather long in the tooth (hey, it's been 21 conferences now since the first ME SKI '92 in 1992) and not really attracting much in the way of new blood, and I "did the math" and decided that although the conference still delivers value beyond its financial cost, the value simply isn't enough to justify the investment of my time. Put another way, the conference is more of a "blue pill" crowd and I need to associate more more hard-core "red pill" types (see the "Red pill and blue pill" Wikipedia article.) I personally need to be moving at "Internet Time" times 2 or more and I just wasn't feeling that the conference was helping me out on that score.

 

In particular, I need to focus more attention on my infamous software agent project which seems to be actually coming to fruition. More on that later, although running, downloadable code can be found here.

-- Jack Krupansky