p.6 EDITORIAL
[author : Jonathan Erickson] #Edito
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FEATURES
p.18 AGENT TCL
[author : Robert S. Gray]
A mobile agent is a program that migrates under its own control from machine to machine in a heterogeneous network. Agent Tcl is a mobile-agent system that uses Tcl as its main language, but provides a framework for incorporating additional languages.
p.28 AGENTS AND REINFORCEMENT LEARNING
[author : Satinder Singh, Peter Norvig, and David Cohn]
Many people see agents and agent-based programming as ushering in a new era in computing — particularly on the Internet. Our authors explain why programming agents is not just business as usual, but requires a new way of looking at problems and their solutions.
p.34 DISTRIBUTED ACTIVE OBJECTS
[author : Marc H. Brown and Marc A. Najork]
Distributed active objects, which communicate with other active objects located on different machines across the Internet, make it easy to write groupware, computer-supported cooperative work applications, and multiplayer games.
p.42 RPC FOR WINDOWS 95/NT
[author : Steve Sipe]
Remote Procedure Call (RPC) programming allows client programs to call server-based functions. Steve presents a technique to simplify the use of Remote Procedure Calls in 32-bit Windows 95/NT applications.
EMBEDDED SYSTEMS
p.48 KERTESY: A REAL-TIME EVENT-DRIVEN MICROKERNEL
[author : Biswajit Sain and Timothy A. Gonsalves]
"Kertesy" is a real-time microkernel for embedded systems designed around Analog Devices' ADSP-21xx series of digital-signal processors. The microkernel is small and fast, but nonetheless powerful.
NETWORKED SYSTEMS
p.60 DYNAMIC MEMORY ALLOCATION AND COMMUNICATIONS PROTOCOLS
[author : Gregory Bollella]
Greg reviews memory allocators, then discusses the allocator used in typical implementations of TCP/IP. He also describes a number of allocator implementation techniques that are helpful in debugging.
PROGRAMMER'S TOOLCHEST
p.64 EXAMINING WIN32 C++ COMPILERS
[author : Ron van der Wal]
Ron examines the leading C++ compilers for creating Win32 executables, including Borland C++, Visual C++, Symantec C++, Watcom C++, and VisualAge C++.
p.74 VISUAL BASIC 5 AND ACTIVEX CONTROLS
[author : Al Williams]
Microsoft's Visual Basic 5 lets you create controls as easily as form-based applications. In theory, these controls can then be used with VB, web pages, C++, Delphi, or any other environment that understands ActiveX.
COLUMNS
p.89 PROGRAMMING PARADIGMS
[author : Michael Swaine]
Michael analyzes what the Apple-NeXT alliance means to Steve Jobs, Apple Computer, and you.
p.93 C PROGRAMMING
[author : Al Stevens]
When writing a data-scope program called "DScope," Al found a dearth of information on the Windows communications API. Still, after lots of digging and even more trial and error, he was able to get DScope up and running — as a DOS application.
p.101 JAVA Q&A
[author : Cliff Berg]
The Java Remote Method Invocation API, which Cliff describes this month, provides new host-based services and more — all downloadable in an applet.
p.105 ALGORITHM ALLEY
[author : Fred Wild]
Based on string "internalization" techniques used in Scheme and LISP, Istring — the C++ class Fred presents here — is a hashing mechanism that provides both compact storage and fast equality tests.
p.109 UNDOCUMENTED CORNER
[author : Robert R. Collins]
Bob discloses the secrets of the Pentium state save map, shows how the AutoHALT feature works, explains the I/O Restart feature, and discusses interrupt servicing within system-management mode.
p.117 PROGRAMMER'S BOOKSHELF
[author : Gregory V. Wilson]
This month, Greg examines Steve McConnell's Rapid Development and Graphic Java: Mastering the AWT by David M. Geary and Alan L. McClellan.
FORUM
p.10 LETTERS
[author : you]
p.16 NEWS & VIEWS
[author : the DDJ staff]
p.119 OF INTEREST
[author : Eugene Eric Kim]
p.128 SWAINE'S FLAMES
[author : Michael Swaine]