Evaluation of Agent–Oriented Software Methodologies – Examination of the Gap Between Modeling and Platform

Abstract

More and more effort is made to provide methodologies for the development of agent-based systems. Awareness has grown that these are necessary to develop high quality agent systems. In recent years a number of proposals has been given. Based on our experiences we argue that a complete evaluation of methodologies cannot be done without considering target platforms, because the differences between available implementations are too fundamental to be ignored. In order to conduct a suitable comparison we present a flexible evaluation framework that takes platform specific criteria into account. Part of this framework is a procedure to derive relevant criteria from the evaluated platforms and methodologies. In combination with a set of platform dependent and independent criteria our framework allows evaluation of the appropriateness of methodologies with respect to platforms. As a consequence, also the suitability of methodologies for an individual platform, or vice versa of several platforms for an individual methodology can be examined. To show the usefulness of our proposal, we evaluate the suitability of different methodologies for an example platform.

Method integration: An approach to develop agent oriented methodologies

“…Then, the evaluation framework, which is built, which consists of properties, attributes and measures. Measures used here to evaluate OOSE methodologies are based on current works and other works performed on agent-oriented methodologies [19][20][21][22]. The evaluation was focused on the technical properties of the methodologies.…”

“…These models have various aspects, but are not complete alone, so by putting them together, a complete and understandable view of the system will be achieved. In choosing models of ARA methodology, noted earlier, a complete evaluation frame is used and covers four main areas of agent-oriented software engineering such as [19][20][21][22] concepts, modeling language, process and activism. According to this frame and its parameters, the support of each methodology is evaluated and experts investigated the actor, capacity and programmer proposed models.…”

Towards interoperability of i* models using iStarML

“…An example of these proposals is Tropos [8], an agent-oriented software development methodology. The contribution of Tropos at the requirements stage and in agent-oriented design has been acknowledged by different comparative studies [21][22][23]. Also relevant is URN [24], an i* variation which has been added as part of the industrial Telecommunications Standard Z.151 [25] for systems specification.…”

Tool Support for Agent Development using the Prometheus Methodology

“…TAOM also uses Eclipse, but it does not appear to support cross checking or hierarchical views. The JACK Design Environment (JDE) 10 is also related to our work, since it provides design diagrams. However, the JDE does not support system specification activities or high level design.…”

“…In its current state, the tool provides the system developer with a graphical user interface that supports the development of the various artefacts within the Prometheus methodology and assists in * Authors listed alphabetically maintaining a consistent design by providing cross checking between the various diagrams, automatic propagation of design elements when possible and appropriate, and name lookup assistance. The file produced by the tool can be transformed into an agent programming language (work has been reported that transforms this output file into a Jadex agent definition file [10]). The current version of PDT is Java based and hence is platform independent.…”