Review by Billy Barron

"Programming and Deploying Java Mobile Agents with Aglets" by Lange and Oshima (Addison-Wesley; ISBN 0-201-32582-9) is going to have an odd review. First, I will review the books and then I will review the Aglet technology very briefly.

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.

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.

On to the technology now: The authors attempt to explain why Agents are useful and try to convince you of the same. I found the reasoning unconvincing. My personal opinion is that unless Agents and Aglet greatly improve they are of limited use. That limited use is intra-company applications that need to minimize network usage.