From: Pat Hayes (phayes@ai.uwf.edu)
Date: 11/29/01
>I am composing responses to the recent e-mail messages regarding DQL and >am planning on sending out a series of such messages. Here is a simple >one to get started. > >SERVER AND CLIENT > >I proposed referring to the agent sending the query as the "client" and >the agent receiving the query as the "server". > >Pat said: > >> BTW, I really >> dislike that term 'server'; it suggests an asymmetry between the >> querier and queried that isn't likely to survive in the broader SW >> world, I think. > >For me, it was simply a matter of convenience to refer to the "query >answering agent" as the "server" and to the "query asking agent" as the >"client". Some such shorthand names are useful, and those terms are the >ones typically used regarding knowledge servers and data servers. I >don't care much what names we use, although "querier" and "queried" >don't seem to me to be improvements. I would agree with you there, to be sure; I didn't mean to suggest that as an alternative terminology. My concern was just a worry that this usage is going to be used in a sense which suggests that clients and servers are different *kinds* of agents, which would be a pity. For example, consider a situation (which is likely to arise very soon, if not already) where a simple query/answer protocol goes on between a Kbase A and an agent B, but where B's role is to act as a query-handler for a more sophisticated kind of query coming from C, eg where C is asking about things like the numbers of answers, which B is compiling into a process of simple queries and responses. What is B here? In the B/C exchange, it is a server; in the A/B exchange, it is a client. If we use these terms as *classifications* (which their traditional usage would suggest), then the role of intermediaries like B becomes cloudy. Whereas I think that agents like B are likely to have a very important and central role in web-based query services; and in fact that our own discussions on this list suggest this possibility already. So, in a word, as long as we are clear that something can be a client from one perspective but a server from another, and there is nothing paradoxical or mysterious about this, then fine. Pat -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- IHMC (850)434 8903 home 40 South Alcaniz St. (850)202 4416 office Pensacola, FL 32501 (850)202 4440 fax phayes@ai.uwf.edu http://www.coginst.uwf.edu/~phayes
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