---
title: "Oz - A Programming Language for Multi-Agent Systems"
authors:
  - "Martin Henz"
  - "Gert Smolka"
  - "Jörg Würtz"
doi: ""
url: "https://ijcai.org/proceedings/1993/57"
pdf: "https://ijcai.org/proceedings/1993/0057.pdf"
venue: "Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence"
year: 1993
pages: "404-408"
track: "Distributed AI"
keywords:
---

# Oz - A Programming Language for Multi-Agent Systems

Martin Henz, Gert Smolka, Jörg Würtz

*Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence*, pages 404-408.

## 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 .