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-====== Ambient-Oriented Programming ======
+~~NOTOC~~
 Welcome to our website on Ambient-Oriented Programming, a novel programming paradigm geared towards promoting and programming spontaneous interactions between different mobile and/or embedded devices.
 {{:at:atlogo.jpg?80  |:at:atlogo.jpg}} This webpage is also the home of AmbientTalk, our experimental programming language to develop applications for software running on mobile ad hoc networks. The current implementation of AmbientTalk is relatively stable. The best way to get started is to [[at:download|download]] the language and to read the [[at:tutorial:tutorial|tutorial]].
-===== What is AmbientTalk all about? =====
+<note>
-Ambient-Oriented programming is a programming paradigm whose properties are derived from the characteristics of hardware platforms for mobile computing. Mobile hardware devices are often provided with wireless networks facilities, allowing them to engage in collaboration with their environment. However, the autonomous nature of these devices as well as the volatile connections over their wireless infrastructure has its repercussions on the software that employs them. The basic assumption of the Ambient-Oriented Programming paradigm is that languages should incorporate possible network failures at the heart of their programming model.
+AmbientTalk is now [[http://code.google.com/p/ambienttalk|open-sourced]] on Google Code under an [[Wp>MIT_License|MIT License]]!
+[[http://code.google.com/p/ambienttalk|{{ http://code.google.com/hosting/images/code_sm.png?150 }}]]
+</note>
-From this observation, several characteristics of programming languages can be derived. Informally we state that an ambient-oriented language is :
+====== What is AmbientTalk about? ======
-  * **Prototype-based** The mismatch between classes and distribution is well-documented and further aggravated in the context of mobile computing.
-  * **Non-blocking** To avoid harming the autonomy of the mobile devices, no device should be blocked awaiting either to send a message or receive a result.
-  * **Communication-Aware** To encompass network failures, objects should be able to keep a log of their own activities, allowing for error recovery.
-  * **Resource-Aware** Service discovery is an integral part of any ambient-oriented language since resources are encountered dynamically in the ever-changing network topology surrounding a device.
-Check out the [[at:introduction|introduction]] to AmbientTalk for a hands-on example showing you the benefits in actual code.
+Ambient-Oriented programming is a programming paradigm whose properties are derived from the characteristics of hardware platforms for mobile computing. Mobile hardware devices are often provided with wireless networks facilities, allowing them to engage in collaboration with their environment. However, the autonomous nature of these devices as well as the volatile connections over their wireless infrastructure has its repercussions on the software that employs them. The basic assumption of the Ambient-Oriented Programming paradigm is that languages should incorporate possible network failures at the heart of their programming model.
-===== Contact =====
+From this observation, several characteristics of programming languages can be derived. Our own experimental language, AmbientTalk, differs from most traditional languages because:
+  * It employs a purely //event-driven// concurrency framework, founded on actors.
+  * It abandons the RPC abstraction in favor of //asynchronous, non-blocking// message passing. Because the system automatically buffers such messages while the receiver of the message is disconnected, the programmer can abstract over temporary network failures //by default//!
+  * It has built-in programming language constructs for objects to //discover// one another in the local ad hoc network. Peer-to-peer //service discovery// is built into the language.
+  * It features a dynamic OO kernel language built upon the principles of prototype-based programming. More importantly, the kernel language is reflective and hence extensible from within the language itself.
-  * The [[http://prog.vub.ac.be/mailman/listinfo/ambienttalk-user|AmbientTalk user list]], for questions and general information on AmbientTalk: ''ambienttalk-user at prog.vub.ac.be''. If you want to contact any one of us personally, please see the [[people|People]] pages for personal contact details.
+Check out the [[at:introduction|introduction]] to AmbientTalk for a hands-on example showing you the benefits in actual code.
-===== Further Reading =====
-**Ambient-Oriented Programming**, Jessie Dedecker, Tom Van Cutsem, Stijn Mostinckx, Theo D'Hondt, Wolfgang De Meuter.
+AmbientTalk is not our only research artifact. There is also [[crime:introduction|CRIME]], a data-driven programming language which explores the logic programming paradigm to tackle similar coordination issues in mobile ad hoc networks.
-In "OOPSLA '05: Companion of the 20th annual ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages and Applications. Pages 31-40. San Diego, U.S.A. ACM Press.", 2005 [ [[http://prog.vub.ac.be/Publications/2005/vub-prog-tr-05-10.pdf|download]] ]
-**Ambient-Oriented Programming in AmbientTalk**, Jessie Dedecker, Tom Van Cutsem, Stijn Mostinckx, Theo D'Hondt, Wolfgang De Meuter.  In "Proceedings of the 20th European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming (ECOOP), Dave Thomas (Ed.), Lecture Notes in Computer Science Vol. 4067, pp. 230-254, Springer-Verlag.", 2006
+====== Contact ======
-[ [[http://prog.vub.ac.be/Publications/2006/vub-prog-tr-06-11.pdf|download]] ]
+The [[http://prog.vub.ac.be/mailman/listinfo/ambienttalk|AmbientTalk mailing list]], for questions and general information on AmbientTalk: {{:1af3bb.gif?220x18}}. If you want to contact any one of us personally, please see the [[people|People pages]] for personal contact details.
-**Ambient-Oriented Programming**, Jessie Dedecker, Ph.D. Thesis, Vrije Universiteit Brussel.
+====== Further Reading ======
-[ [[http://prog.vub.ac.be/Publications/2006/vub-prog-phd-06-01.pdf|download]] ]
+If you're interested in the Ambient-oriented Programming paradigm in general, check out the [[research:papers|papers on AmOP]] page. The seminal [[http://prog.vub.ac.be/Publications/2005/vub-prog-tr-05-10.pdf|OOPSLA2005 Onward! paper]] pretty much sums up our earliest musings on AmOP. A year later, at [[http://prog.vub.ac.be/Publications/2006/vub-prog-tr-06-11.pdf|ECOOP2006]], we refined these ideas and applied them to our first AmbientTalk prototype.
-More information can also be found in the [[research:papers|Papers]] section.
+If you're interested in the AmbientTalk programming language, check out the [[research:atpapers|papers on AmbientTalk]] page. The [[http://prog.vub.ac.be/Publications/2006/vub-prog-tr-06-11.pdf|ECOOP2006 paper]] is the first paper describing AmbientTalk in-depth. However, since mid-2006, the language has been extensively revised. A good starting point for reading about the revised language is the [[http://prog.vub.ac.be/Publications/2007/vub-prog-tr-07-17.pdf|SCCC2007 paper]].
-===== Research Topics =====
+====== Research Topics ======
   * [[research:ambientrefs|Ambient References]]
   * [[research:exceptions|Ambient-Oriented Exception Handling]]