Software FAQ

Software Release

Testbed Architecture

Software Release

  • When will the ART Testbed software be released?

    New releases occur on a continuous basis and are announced in the web page as well as through the ART testbed group discussion board. If you are interested in beta testing the testbed software, contact the development team.

  • Can I contribute to the testbed code?

    You may request to join the ART Testbed development team by contacting the team. Development team members play a crucial role in making decisions about the direction of the Testbed. Testbed users interested in smaller roles--such as contributing small portions of code--may submit their code changes to the team. Approved changes will be included in the next software release.

  • Under what license will the ART Testbed software be released?

    It is under LGPL.

Testbed Architecture

  • How difficult is it to implement my own agent to play in the Testbed games?

    • Creating an agent to participate in Testbed games is easy. The user simply creates a class, extending the Java abstract class "Agent". This class must implement methods for each of the agent's decisions (such as from whom to request opinions, what weights to submit to the simulation, etc.). Utility methods are provided for creating and submitting messages, as well as querying for game statistics.

  • Are agent skeletons available for building agents in languages other than Java?

    Currently we are only pursuing the development of a Java-based agent skeleton. However, agent skeletons designed in languages other than Java (such as C++ or lisp) may be developed in the future.

  • Why wasn't Jade used as the testbed's agent platform?

    The standalone architecture employed by the ART Testbed makes implementing agents for participation easy (as described here). The "heavyweight" Jade platform was deemed unnecessary by the development team.