Talk:Agents in SCOOP
I use the first parameter in ROUTINE as a documentation hint, to specify the contract an agent is expected to fulfill.
That is, I declare the callback agent as having type ROUTINE [MY_CLASS, TUPLE [....]]
Then in MY_CLASS I declare a single deferred routine that conforms to the expected signature of the callback. This routine is then equipped with contracts.
This serves as a hint to the user as to what the requirements of the callback actually are. If the user follows the hint by inheriting from MY_CLASS to implement the call back, then the contract is actually checked at runtime, and so provides an early warning of what the bug is.
So I find it usefull.
--Colin-adams 07:37, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
Alexander Kogtenkov 07:45, 21 March 2013 (UTC): Could you provide an example? Isn't it too restrictive to require an agent to be based on a specific target?