A strength of agent architectures such as PRS and dMARS, which are based on stored plan execution, is that their plan languages offer an easily understood, visual representation of behaviour that permits their underlying architectural complexity to be partially abstracted and effectively exploited. Unlike visual representations of behaviour used in methodologies such as UML for programming in Object Oriented languages such as \textsfJava, plan graphs constitute a direct, executable specification of agent behaviour rather than a model which guides implementation refinement. Previously, such languages have lacked a formal semantic basis. This paper presents key elements of a new visual programming language ViP which has a complete and exact semantics based upon a recently described agent process algebra -- the P calculus.
['David Kinny']
ViP: a visual programming language for plan execution systems