4 ms·

I've been fascinated with the 'Lisping in the JPL' piece (even though I tend to prefer Scheme). However, I've been trying to find something substantial about th

I've been fascinated with the 'Lisping in the JPL' piece (even though I tend to prefer Scheme). However, I've been trying to find something substantial about the 'remote agent' and I can't really find much. Sure, there are some articles describing at a very high level how it worked, but not much more than that. At least, I couldn't find. Do you think anything survived that would shed more light in its workings? Not even talking about the code (although that would have been wonderful, and maybe it should be provided - taxpayer funded and whatnot).

abecedarius 5y ago
Sorry to disappoint you more, but there was even a Scheme dialect that another JPL researcher had invented, which never came out as far as I know. (I contributed a bit to it, but left for silicon valley, and I think at that point it got mothballed. Wish I had a copy.)
lisper 5y ago
I have no idea what documentation for the RA was preserved, but I'd be surprised if the complete source isn't archived somewhere. I would contact the JPL PIO (public information office) and ask them.
- outworlder 5y ago
  Thank you!
  - lisper 5y ago
    You bet!
costigan 5y ago
The canonical references (e.g., http://www.ai.mit.edu/courses/6.834J-f01/Williams-remote-agent-aij98.pdf http://www.ai.mit.edu/courses/6.834J-f01/Williams-remote-age...) are pretty good. If you are interested in diving very deeply into the topic, I think you'd be better off going through the work that Brian Williams has been doing since he worked on Remote Agent (https://people.csail.mit.edu/williams/Web%20site/papers.shtml https://people.csail.mit.edu/williams/Web%20site/papers.shtm...). While this more recent work reflects his individual perspective and not the ideas of his remote agent collaborators, it is a rich and detailed body of work that can be studied. Brian's collaborators at NASA Ames mostly left Ames and went on to work on a wide variety of other interesting projects. At JPL, some of the ideas in Remote Agent went into a large project called the Mission Data System. I only know about this from a distance, but my impression is that this was a rethinking of how to build spacecraft flight software from the ground up to have the flexibility that Remote Agent sought while also sticking close to JPL's software development and testing methodology. It's described here: https://mds.jpl.nasa.gov/public/ https://mds.jpl.nasa.gov/public/
- outworlder 5y ago
  That's quite a bit of homework, but that's the sort of thing I was looking for :) The first link is the one I keep coming back to, and I keep finding interesting idea. But it didn't occur to me to follow the people involved. Thanks for the references!

abecedarius 5y ago

Sorry to disappoint you more, but there was even a Scheme dialect that another JPL researcher had invented, which never came out as far as I know. (I contributed a bit to it, but left for silicon valley, and I think at that point it got mothballed. Wish I had a copy.)

lisper 5y ago

I have no idea what documentation for the RA was preserved, but I'd be surprised if the complete source isn't archived somewhere. I would contact the JPL PIO (public information office) and ask them.

outworlder 5y ago
Thank you!
- lisper 5y ago
  You bet!

costigan 5y ago

The canonical references (e.g., http://www.ai.mit.edu/courses/6.834J-f01/Williams-remote-agent-aij98.pdf http://www.ai.mit.edu/courses/6.834J-f01/Williams-remote-age...) are pretty good. If you are interested in diving very deeply into the topic, I think you'd be better off going through the work that Brian Williams has been doing since he worked on Remote Agent (https://people.csail.mit.edu/williams/Web%20site/papers.shtml https://people.csail.mit.edu/williams/Web%20site/papers.shtm...). While this more recent work reflects his individual perspective and not the ideas of his remote agent collaborators, it is a rich and detailed body of work that can be studied. Brian's collaborators at NASA Ames mostly left Ames and went on to work on a wide variety of other interesting projects. At JPL, some of the ideas in Remote Agent went into a large project called the Mission Data System. I only know about this from a distance, but my impression is that this was a rethinking of how to build spacecraft flight software from the ground up to have the flexibility that Remote Agent sought while also sticking close to JPL's software development and testing methodology. It's described here: https://mds.jpl.nasa.gov/public/ https://mds.jpl.nasa.gov/public/

outworlder 5y ago
That's quite a bit of homework, but that's the sort of thing I was looking for :) The first link is the one I keep coming back to, and I keep finding interesting idea. But it didn't occur to me to follow the people involved. Thanks for the references!