Selecting a methodology in Multi-Agent Systems - A Practical and Quasi-Technical Analysis of Agent-based, Object Oriented and Knowledge Engineering-based methodologies.

Abstract

As recognition of agents’ technology registers steady improvement over years, there is an emergent need for practical methods for developing agent applications. Agent-Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE) methodologies were proposed to develop complex distributed system grounded upon the agent paradigm. Initially, the challenge was the lack of mature development methodologies for agent-based systems, efforts in the right direction to address the problem resulted in the proliferation of methodologies, which presents a new challenge that is, practitioners are challenged in that they need to select a methodology from a large number of existing methodologies. The literature in this paper suggests a necessity to the understanding of the classification of AOSE methodologies. We advocate for a view that is in twofold, first, practitioners need to first understand in a wide sense the categories of AOSE methodologies, so as to correctly link it to their intended agent solution, secondly, identify a methodology considering the availability of support features such as maturity, availability of documentation and support tools.