Oz - A Programming Language for Multi-Agent Systems

Abstract

Oz is an experimental higher-order concurrent. constraint programming system under development at DFKI. It combines ideas from logic and concurrent programming in a simple yet. expressive language . From logic programming Oz inherits logic variables and logic data structures, which provide for a programming style where partial information about the values of variables is imposed concurrently and incrementally. A novel feature of Oz is that it accommodat es higher-order programming without sacrificing that denotation and equality of variables are captured by first-order logic. Another new feature of Oz is constraint. communication, a new form of asynchronous communication exploiting logic variables. Constraint. communication avoids the problems of stream communication, the conventional communication mechanism employed in concurrent. logic programming . Constraint. communication can be seen as providing a minimal form of state fully compatible with logic data structures . Based on constraint. communication and higher-order programming, Oz readily supports a variety of object-oriented programming styles including multiple inheritance .