Taming Agents and Objects in Software Engineering

Abstract

Abstract. Agent-based software engineering has been proposed in addition to object-oriented software engineering as a means of mastering the complexity associated with the development of large-scale distributed systems. However, there is still a poor understanding of the interplay between the notions of agents and objects from a software engineering perspective. Moreover, the many facets of agent-based software engineering are rarely used in the various phases of the software development lifecycle because of the lack of a comprehensive framework to provide the software designers with a clear understanding of the use of these two key abstractions. In this context, this paper presents TAO, an evolving innovative conceptual framework based on agent and object abstractions, which are the foundations for modeling large-scale software systems. The conceptual framework allows for the characterization of largescale software systems as organizations of passive components, the objects, and autonomous components, the agents, with each of these elements playing roles to interact with each other and to coordinate their actions in order to fulfill system goals.

FAML: A Generic Metamodel for MAS Development

“…For those papers that discuss the metamodel element of a modeling language, there are a number of approaches that offer an agent-oriented extension to UML [23], [24], [25] and others, like in this paper, that eschew this route, arguing that UML is an inappropriate basis for an AO modeling language [19], [20]. There is no agreement as to whether "agent-oriented concepts can readily be defined in terms of object-oriented ones" ([67, p. 121]) or whether "to properly support agent-based modeling, it would be necessary to add new concepts and notations in the UML core metamodel" and that "a stereotyped object is still an object" [20].…”

“…Since the concepts needed for agent-oriented software engineering extend and modify those for object-oriented software engineering, it is generally agreed that a direct, simple use of UML as an AO modeling language is inappropriate [19], [20], [21], [22]. This paper therefore does not pursue a UML-based modeling language such as a UML profile, as done effectively in AUML [23], [24] and AML [25].…”

Principles of Agent-Oriented Programming

“…In (Silva et al, 2003) an agent is defined as an extension of an object with additional features, because it extends the definition of state and behavior associated with objects. The mental states consist of its states and behaviors.…”

Towards an MDA Based Multi-agent Approach for Information System Development

“…These tools will be regrouped in a development environment. To provide these different elements, we adopt an open source environment of software engineering based on STARUML [11], MAS-ML [17] and ASF framework [18] and the Visual Agent [17] platform. The figure 4 shows the different mappings among the different frameworks of development.…”