If the applications that retrieved the information were scriptable, a single script could make inquiries to several information sources. The script could then compile and present the information in a format that is meaningful to the decision maker. Scripting puts the user, not the application, in the director's chair. Although traditional uses of scripting can help your application's run at the box office, your next blockbuster is likely to come from an emerging marketplace, such as mobile computing. One paradigm for mobile computing involves mobile agents.
Mobile agents are programs that move about the network using available resources at various nodes.
Users create the agents using software on laptop computers and on personal digital assistants. For example, a person at a basketball game might generate an agent that makes dinner reservations after the game. The software generates the agent based on the user's selections and sends the agent to the appropriate server. The agent itself would be a program written in a scripting language. Mobile agents become especially interesting when they arrive at a server to do work.