Combining Logical Agents with Rapid Prototyping forEngineering Distributed

The realization of new distributed and heterogeneous software applications is a challenge that software engineers have to face. Logic Programming and Multi-Agent Systems can play a very eeective role in the rapid prototyping of new software products. The paper proposes a general approach to the prototyping of complex and distributed applications modelled as Multi-Agent Systems and outlines the autonomous research experiences of diierent research groups from which the proposal originates. All the experiences have Logic Programming as the common foundation and deal with diierent aspects of the problem: integration of heterogeneous data and reasoning systems, animation of formal speciications and development of agent based software. The nal goal is joining the diverse experiences into a unique open framework. Despite thirty years of research and experience and many successful results, software systems are still diicult to engineer to guarantee correctness and reliability. This is particularly true for distributed systems, where a set of entities have to cooperate and coordinate for exchanging information coming from diverse existing sources. Hence, integration and reusing of diierent kinds of information and software tools is an urgent necessity that new software products have to cope with. The agent-oriented paradigm 25,19] is an emerging technology which permits a high level model of applications in which many autonomous, intelligent and interacting entities (a Multi-Agent System or MAS) cooperate to achieve a common goal or compete to satisfy personal needs. Our interest in intelligent agents is driven by the rm belief that they meet the demands of complex interaction between components of application. We assume a loose \declarative" deenition that an agent is an autonomous, social, reactive and proactive piece of software that provides some services and is able to communicate with other agents using a common agent communication language. Due to the inherent complexity of the applications modelled as MAS, it is important to build them following some well-established method. Rigorous processes as formal methods are recognized as essential for correctness, but their key problem is the diiculty to match client's needs quickly and accurately. Further, they usually force the developer to give a (too) detailed system speciication, without taking into account modelling and veriication of applications integrating existing software modules. Prototyping and animating speciications are recognized as an aid to