Computer programming environments for learning should make it easy to create worlds of responsive and autonomous objects, such as video games or simulations of animal behavior. But building such worlds remains difficult, partly because the models and metaphors underlying traditional programming languages are not particularly suited to the task. In this context, an agent is a simple mechanism intended to be understood through anthropomorphic metaphors and endowed with certain lifelike properties such as autonomy, purposefulness, and emotional state.
Complex behavior is achieved by combining simple agents into more complex structures.
While the agent metaphor enables new ways of thinking about programming, it also raises new problems such as inter-agent conflict and new tasks such as making the activity of a complex society of agents understandable to the user. To explore these ideas, a visual programming environment called LiveWorld has been developed that supports the creation of agent-based models, along with a series of agent languages that operate in this world. Acrobat reader is required.