From Object-Oriented to Agent-Oriented Software Engineering Methodologies

Object-oriented methodologies are well-established and have been used as one input for the creation of methodologies suitable to support the development of agent-oriented software systems. While these agent-oriented (AO) methodologies vary in style and, particularly, in heritage and often with a specific focus (either in terms of domain, application style or lifecycle coverage), for industry adoption it is essential that full lifecycle coverage is achieved in a “standardized” way. One way of achieving some degree of standardization yet maintaining full flexibility is through the use of situational method engineering (SME). With this approach, method fragments are created and stored in a repository. For an individual software development, a subset of these is then selected from the repository and a project-specific (or sometimes organization-specific) methodology is constructed. Here, we demonstrate how this might work by using the OPEN approach that already provides a significant coverage of AO method fragments as well as more traditional OO and pre-OO fragments. Those newer fragments supporting AO approaches are detailed, describing, as they do, emerging substantial support for AO methodological creation from the OPEN repository in an SME context.