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 ====== What is AmbientTalk about? ======
-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.
+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 nearby devices in 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.
 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 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 make abstraction from 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 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.
+  * It features a dynamic OO kernel language built upon the principles of prototype-based programming. The kernel language is reflective and hence extensible from within the language itself.
 Check out the [[at:introduction|introduction]] to AmbientTalk for a hands-on example showing you the benefits in actual code. Alternatively, glance at the [[at:byexample|key expressions]] in the language to get a 60-second overview of the language's design and intents.
 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.
+====== Why another programming language? ======
+"What does a high-level language accomplish? It frees a program from much of its accidental complexity. An abstract program consists of conceptual constructs: operations, data types, sequences, and communication. The concrete machine program is concerned with bits, registers, conditions, branches, channels, disks, and such. To the extent that the high-level language embodies the constructs one wants in the abstract program and avoids all lower ones, it eliminates a whole level of complexity that was never inherent in the program at all."   - Frederick Brooks, //No Silver Bullet: Essence and Accidents of
+Software Engineering//
 ====== Contact ======