Rating: 
Summary: Good intro book to agents
Review: The book is an excellent read. When I started the book, I knew every little about Agents. By the time, I was done I knew much more. The writing is extremely clear, interesting and understandable. Unlike many of the Agent fanatics, Lange and Oshima carefully explain the problems with Agent technology as it stands today.</p> All of this translates into a book that is useful to read even if you do not care about the Aglet technology. It is a good book for anyone who wants to understand the state of the art of Agents and see how one particular Agent implementation works.</p>
Rating: 
Summary: Coud be a lot better
Review: After searching a while for a reference on the Aglets SDK I was quite happy to see that this book was on it's way to be published. But I was surprised to see that the book, while covering the main aspects of the ASDK, does not cover the most important issue it shuld do : creating Aglets applications. It does have a lot of references on topics (like proxies, messaging, etc.), but it does not cover for starters the Tahiti server, the source code is confuse (not very well structured, very messy) and does not contains the imports that are necessary and package declarations, so beginners with the ASDK will be very frustrated when trying to compile the code or seeing it not working when they manage to compile but don't know they need to declare the Aglet code as a package. It's a solid reference about the ASDK, but not a good guide on HOW TO develop a simple application. I whished that the book was better than the docs provided by IBM with the ASDK, but now I know I wished it were A LOT better. I hope someday SAMS publish something like "Teach Yourself Aglets in 21 days", then starters will have a chance with Aglets, but for now, this book helps only who does have an idea about what he/she's going to work with and is patient enough to find out what's wrong with the source code at first, and manages to somehow understand all the security issues on Tahiti from the documentation alone. The motto of this review is "teach not only what you have in hands, but WHY you need it".
Rating:
Summary: Coud be a lot better
Review: After searching a while for a reference on the Aglets SDK I was quite happy to see that this book was on it's way to be published. But I was surprised to see that the book, while covering the main aspects of the ASDK, does not cover the most important issue it shuld do : creating Aglets applications. It does have a lot of references on topics (like proxies, messaging, etc.), but it does not cover for starters the Tahiti server, the source code is confuse (not very well structured, very messy) and does not contains the imports that are necessary and package declarations, so beginners with the ASDK will be very frustrated when trying to compile the code or seeing it not working when they manage to compile but don't know they need to declare the Aglet code as a package. It's a solid reference about the ASDK, but not a good guide on HOW TO develop a simple application. I whished that the book was better than the docs provided by IBM with the ASDK, but now I know I wished it were A LOT better. I hope someday SAMS publish something like "Teach Yourself Aglets in 21 days", then starters will have a chance with Aglets, but for now, this book helps only who does have an idea about what he/she's going to work with and is patient enough to find out what's wrong with the source code at first, and manages to somehow understand all the security issues on Tahiti from the documentation alone. The motto of this review is "teach not only what you have in hands, but WHY you need it".
Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommended
Review: The content covered in this book is both extremely useful and well written. The basics of mobile agents and why you would want to use them, the security issues involved and the fundamental issues facing someone wishing to implement their own system using Aglets are all examined. The code examples are all easy to follow, gradually grow more complex and demonstrate the power of the Aglets package. The latter part of the book covers more advanced topics such as design patterns found in mobile agent based applications and an in depth look at the Aglet Framework, the underlying structure behind the programmers Aglet API. If you are currently, or are thinking, about doing anything with aglets then this book is a MUST read. Even battle hardened agleteers can learn the best way to build and optimise their aglets. If you simple want to find out more about mobile agents and see them working within a successful framework then this book is also for you.
Rating: 
Summary: Very useful.
Review: The content covered in this book is both extremely useful and well written. The basics of mobile agents and why you would want to use them, the security issues involved and the fundamental issues facing someone wishing to implement their own system using Aglets are all examined. The code examples are all easy to follow, gradually grow more complex and demonstrate the power of the Aglets package. The latter part of the book covers more advanced topics such as design patterns found in mobile agent based applications and an in depth look at the Aglet Framework, the underlying structure behind the programmers Aglet API. If you are currently, or are thinking, about doing anything with aglets then this book is a MUST read. Even battle hardened agleteers can learn the best way to build and optimise their aglets. If you simple want to find out more about mobile agents and see them working within a successful framework then this book is also for you.
Rating:
Summary: Great Attempt But Falls Short
Review: The IBM Aglets Software Development Kit is, to me, the most promising leap to intelligent and mobile application development yet. I applaud the research and development by IBM, Danny B. Lange, and Mitsuru Oshima. But this book creates more questions than answers, and with IBM's lack of current up-to-date documentation, I cannot see the java developer community embracing this NOW as the next logical java leap; which I think it is. My initial excitement waned after I purchased this book. Many of the examples did not work. Written to the JDK 1.1.5, no comparison/contrast with ASDK 1.0.3 and 1.1.b2 is mentioned. Furthermore, the Tahiti server (Aglet Environment) is not even explored. To me this is a fatal oversight because an aglet cannot exist without an environment. That environment at least initially is Tahiti which comes with the ASDK the book mentions. In short, this work is excellent in concept and poor in real-world implementation. The authors should work on a second edition. Is it worth buying? Easy. For understanding the Java Aglet concept, yes. Implementation, no.
Rating:
Summary: Great Attempt But Falls Short
Review: The IBM Aglets Software Development Kit is, to me, the most promising leap to intelligent and mobile application development yet. I applaud the research and development by IBM, Danny B. Lange, and Mitsuru Oshima. But this book creates more questions than answers, and with IBM's lack of current up-to-date documentation, I cannot see the java developer community embracing this NOW as the next logical java leap; which I think it is. My initial excitement waned after I purchased this book. Many of the examples did not work. Written to the JDK 1.1.5, no comparison/contrast with ASDK 1.0.3 and 1.1.b2 is mentioned. Furthermore, the Tahiti server (Aglet Environment) is not even explored. To me this is a fatal oversight because an aglet cannot exist without an environment. That environment at least initially is Tahiti which comes with the ASDK the book mentions. In short, this work is excellent in concept and poor in real-world implementation. The authors should work on a second edition. Is it worth buying? Easy. For understanding the Java Aglet concept, yes. Implementation, no.
Rating: 
Summary: About the Aglet Book
Review: The next huge wave of Internet development, Java Aglets are lightweight mobile agents that enable the autonomous execution of programs on remote heterogeneous hosts. Because Java aglets automate many of the processes users must now perform manually, the technology is poised to transform the way many users interact with the Internet. Written by the creators of the technology, this book gives you the knowledge and skills you need to create Java aglets using IBM's Aglets Software Development Kit. Practical in focus, the book features numerous real-world examples of Java code that illustrate concepts and demonstrate Java aglets in action. Geared for Java programmers with no previous agent experience, the book presents a clear introduction to mobile agents that explains the basic conceptual model, agent behavior, the creation and disposal of agents, and agent transfer over a network. The appendix provides systematic, detailed coverage of the Java Aglet API describes and illustrates aglet anatomy, context, messaging, and collaboration. Moving beyond these basics, the book also presents advanced topics, such as design patterns for creating mobile agent applications, and provides a deeper look inside the Aglets framework to help you optimize the performance of your aglets. Aglet security, a topic of critical importance for this mobile technology, is covered in depth. QUOTE: "Aglet mobile agents are one of the more significant emerging technologies in distributed network computing . The book covers crital aspects of the technology with Aglets examples, explanations of the Aglet API and of mobile agent security. Danny Lange and Misturu Oshima are leaders in Aglet technology developement and their book will be an invalable resource for Java programmers." -- David Gee, Director of Java Marketing, IBM CONTENT Chapter 1: Introduction to Mobile Agents This chapter leads you into the world of mobile agents, an emerging technology that makes it much easier to design, implement, and maintain distributed systems. We explain the benefits of mobile agents and demonstrate their impact on the design of distributed systems. The chapter also includes a brief overview of contemporary mobile agent systems. Chapter 2: Elements of a Mobile Agent System This chapter helps you to develop a basic understanding of the elements of a mobile agent system. We present the basic conceptual model of mobile agents, which includes the two core concepts of any mobile agent system: agent and place. The chapter also describes the essentials of agent behavior, including the creation and disposal of agents and their transfer over a network. Chapter 3: Mobile Agents with Java This chapter shows what it is that makes Java a powerful tool for agent development. This chapter introduces you to the aglet-a Java-based agile agent-and gives you a brief overview of the Aglet API. The purpose of this overview is to link the mobile agent model with Java. Chapter 4: Anatomy of an Aglet This chapter teaches you about the methods in the Aglet class that can be overridden by the programmer. These methods are systematically invoked by the system as important events in the life of an aglet. The chapter shows you the principles of using these methods, including important information about the order in which they are invoked by the system when specific events take place. With this knowledge, you will be in a position to create aglets that can perform simple tasks on remote computers. Chapter 5: Aglet Context This chapter covers one of the key elements of the Aglet API, namely, the AgletContext interface. The interface defines the execution context for aglets, and in this chapter we teach you about the methods that an aglet can invoke in its current context to create new aglets, retrieve aglets contained in the same as well as remote contexts, and much more. Chapter 6: Aglet Messaging This chapter covers the basics of aglet messaging. Several means of interaglet communication are supported in the Aglet API, and you will learn about simple messaging with and without reply, advanced message management, and multicast messaging between aglets. The classes covered in this chapter include Message, MessageManager, and FutureReply. Chapter 7: Aglet Collaboration This chapter introduces the aglet proxy, AgletProxy, and describes the rationale behind this important element of the Aglet API. This overview is followed by a demonstration of different ways to control aglets to make them collaborate with one another. Chapter 8: Agent Design Patterns This chapter focuses on a set of design patterns for creating mobile agent applications. Design patterns have proved to be highly useful in object-oriented programming and have helped developers to achieve good design of applications through reusability of validated components. We hope that the design patterns described in this chapter will serve this purpose in the context of aglet-based applications. Chapter 9: Inside Aglets This chapter presents a general overview of the components of the Aglets framework, with a special focus on selected parts of the framework. After reading this chapter you should have a sufficient understanding of the inner workings of the Aglets Framework to optimize the performance of your aglets, to understand why apparently healthy aglets are malfunctioning, and overall to better use the Aglet API in your programming. Chapter 10: Aglet Security This chapter introduces you to network security technologies in general and mobile agent security in particular. We first show you what can go wrong when mobile agents are released in a network. This is followed by a taxonomy of attacks, which introduces you to some potential attacks related to mobile agents. We then briefly explain cryptography as a general basis of security before continuing with a description of the set of security services available for mobile agents. The remainder of this chapter is devoted to a description of security policies for mobile agent systems in general and the Aglets framework in particular. Appendix: The Aglet API Documentation The appendix contains the API documentation of the Aglet API (limited to the aglet package). Bibliography We offer this list of works for further reading on related topics. The list is by no means exhaustive, and other excellent works exist on most of the topics.
Rating: 
Summary: Code in book falls short of its claim
Review: This book falls short in terms of its coding examples, none which worked. The book presents the coding examples in a very confusing manner. There are some errors in the book (particularly in the usage of URL on page 48, for example). The "dispatch" context is no where to be found in any of the aglet jar files I downloaded from their website. The programming examples are not explained very well and there is no discussion of what code goes with what in order to execute the mobile code correctly. As I examine the code and attempt to use it, I get the impression that the authors didn't check to see if the code worked properly. This book is a total waste of money, and my advice to the authors is to take there time and re-write the book to make sure that the code works properly, discuss specifically what "jar" files are needed for the classes used in the book, and to explain in a more thorough way with their code examples how to construct mobile agents. Also, the authors need to provide a website to download the code examples as opposed to forcing the readers to write the code from scratch. This method of obtaining code has become a standard for all the books I've bought, and saves time and effort, and allows the reader to think about how the code is working. In general, I was very frustrated with the examples in the book, none which were consistent with the aglet jar files I downloaded from the Tokyo IBM website. I hope another addition is in the works.
Rating:
Summary: Code in book falls short of its claim
Review: This book falls short in terms of its coding examples, none which worked. The book presents the coding examples in a very confusing manner. There are some errors in the book (particularly in the usage of URL on page 48, for example). The "dispatch" context is no where to be found in any of the aglet jar files I downloaded from their website. The programming examples are not explained very well and there is no discussion of what code goes with what in order to execute the mobile code correctly. As I examine the code and attempt to use it, I get the impression that the authors didn't check to see if the code worked properly. This book is a total waste of money, and my advice to the authors is to take there time and re-write the book to make sure that the code works properly, discuss specifically what "jar" files are needed for the classes used in the book, and to explain in a more thorough way with their code examples how to construct mobile agents. Also, the authors need to provide a website to download the code examples as opposed to forcing the readers to write the code from scratch. This method of obtaining code has become a standard for all the books I've bought, and saves time and effort, and allows the reader to think about how the code is working. In general, I was very frustrated with the examples in the book, none which were consistent with the aglet jar files I downloaded from the Tokyo IBM website. I hope another addition is in the works.
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