An Intelligent Web System

This section describes an experimental object oriented communication system for the Internet. It describes a novel way to use Web sites.

For most users this will not be preferable to the conventional way Webs sites are employed. However, it does illustrate, how an object oriented approach to a problem can throw up some interesting new ideas and possibilities.

For me, the idea of a new approach to Internet communication has been attractive for two reasons:

1) Having a non commercial Web site with limited funding, I could not afford to run a full time dedicated Web server.

Several organizations and individuals have kindly provided me with space on their servers free of charge to run mirror sites, but, although this help is invaluable, I also need the ability to be able to do more than just provide a passive display.

Even with the best will in the world nobody is going to let me play around and experiment with their system - and I need to run a Web site which is part of a system I can tinker around with and change at will.

2) As an ongoing situation, part of the experimental work for my next book, I also need to set up a system of communication which will be able to accommodate the activities of intelligent agents. It needs to be a system which can be designed to evolve - in a biological sense.

These needs prompted me to look for a radical new approach to communicating on the Internet and once you are into object oriented thinking you can start to come up with some very novel approaches to Web communications.

Web sites, for example - which are Web pages linked together with communication paths - can be thought of as virtual objects which are made up from a collection of other objects (the Web pages).

From this paradigm, a virtual Web site object can be viewed as having an independent existence in its own right - becoming an entity within the abstract object oriented environment of the Internet and the World Wide Web.

As an independent virtual object, a Web site need not be associated with any particular location or computer. In other words, the collective pages of a Web site, seen as a single virtual object, can be abstracted away from the hardware altogether.

Such a virtual Web site object can be visualized as existing as a nebulous entity (of linked pages) spread across a number of computers, or, as a compact entity which can be encapsulated inside a container.

By modifying this paradigm slightly, a virtual Web object can also be seen as an entity which is able to move around the Internet. Because the content has to be reproduced, to download onto different computer for viewing, this process can be seen as the Web site object replicating or cloning itself.

Considered in this way, a virtual Web site object can be designed as a communicating, replicating and evolving creature - capable of intelligence and learning.

This is a massively powerful paradigm. It may take a little time to sink in, but, once you can conceptualize Web sites in this way, it can completely change your whole approach to Web site design as well as your conception as to how the Internet and the World Wide Web could be used for communication purposes.

An Example of a System of Communicating Web Site Objects

As with biological creatures, different species of Web site objects can emerge to evolve into almost an infinite variety of different forms

To consider a single simple example: take this virtual Web site object you are reading from now.

Compressed with an Aladdin Stuffit file, this collection of Web pages becomes a Web site object which can be sent over the Internet. Like any object in Lingo (or any other object: in an object oriented language or a biological system) this then becomes an object which can be duplicated and distributed.

This Web site object will make an instance of itself when expanded; metamorphosising into a form readable off-line with any Web browser.

As an independent object, it can be placed onto a CD-ROM, downloaded from a Web site, or, passed from person to person as an email attachment. It does not have to have a single location and copies can exist in any number of different locations around the world.

On first thoughts, it would seem that a large number of similar Web site objects, floating around in Web space, would be confusing, counter productive and use uneccesary bandwidth.

Not so! It only seems this way because of the paradigm being used to look at it in this context. In fact the traffic of imagining Web sites moving around the Internet to different people is no different from that of imagining browsers from different people keep visiting a particular Web site. The traffic and bandwidth use is identical - think about it :-)

However, the inherent power of objects is that they can communicate with each other. Within this Web site object, which you are reading now, is a means to communicate with an autoresponder object. This allows this Web site object to get in touch with a central base and become a part of a system.

Through communications with this central base this Web site object can be modified, changed or updated. It can be enhanced or given supplementary or additional information. More importantly, this communication link can provide feedback - a feature essential to any evolving system.

Linked through an auto responder to a central organizing object (or system of objects), a floating Web site object can send and receive intelligence and feedback: allowing evolutionary changes and modifications to be made to the Web site on the fly.

Notice how, with this paradigm, the clients are not treated as passive receivers of information but become part of the system itself. Notce how the Web site objects are not associated with a single central computer but are seen as part of the client's personal system.

How this Web site facilitates communication

In this Web site object system, it works like this:

On each Web page there is an email address peter@genps.demon.co.uk. Besides allowing human to human communication with the author, this communication link also facilitates communication to an intelligent auto responder.

This auto responder object checks the subject line of all incoming messages for key words. If it detects a recognizable message in the subject line it will direct the message to an intelligent software agent which will act upon the message appropriately. e.g:

sendSorcery - in the subject line will cause the latest version of the Web site to be emailed back to the sender

updateSorcery - in the subject line will cause a list of the updating history of the Web site to be emailed back to the sender

sorceryNews - in the subject line will cause a current update of news and information to be sent out.

(A full list of commands appears in the next page).

Notice that these communications must be sent by a human client who has to insert an appropriate key word into the subject line of an otherwise blank email before sending it off.

It may seem odd, to have a human involved in what could be an automatic process, but, remember that people are also objects and can be included into any intelligent object oriented system.

By including a human in this feedback loop it gives the client control over its Web site and the extent of its messaging. The same applies to the Web site object's method of replication.

After all, you never know what scary thing this could become if the messaging and replicating systems were allowed to be completely controlled by the objects themselves
;-)

Note: there is no need to type anything into the body of these email messages - they will be handled by the auto responder object who reads the subject line only.

Web queens and central control

All email messages go through the auto responder which acts as a message interpeter and router. As a response to these messages from the virtual Web site objects it will send out appropriate data or communications.

Now think about insect colonies. These work on the principle of a queen being at the center of the system. The queen has two roles:

1) As the producer of new generations of insect objects

2) As the center of the colony's information system

There are many similarities between such an organized system of insects and the intelligent Web site object system being discussed here.

Think of the auto responder as the queen of this Web system:

1) It can give birth to new objects (by sending out copies of the Web site).

2) It is at the center of a communication system which links to all the objects it creates.

The secret of an insect colony's success is that its system also allows the exchange of information between individual insect objects. Ants exchange chemical messages and bees do their characteristic little dances in front of the hive to tell others where to go for rich food sources.

Thus, for a system of Web objects to gain intelligence, it must do more than just provide feedback and updating facilities: it must also facilitate the exchange of information between all of its constituent objects.

How can this be arranged for a system of Web site objects?

Until such a time when Web site objects themselves can intelligently communicate with each other,we have to bring humans into the loop again. List serve forums can be employed to provide common information exchange arenas.

Information and intelligence will filter back from these list serves to modify and update the form and the content of the Web site objects.

Clever idea isn't it? I didn't think of it though - I pinched the idea from nature.

Extending the system

If you think of this system of linked Web site objects as an object in its own right, you can think of it as linking and communicating with other similar objects.

You'll notice a section in the index (at this stage not yet built) called Links to other systems. Web pages under this heading will be providing communication links to other Web site systems (as and when they emerge).

[Index]
[Next - A Web Information Object]
[Back - Taking part]