On the Convergence of Analysis and Design Methods for Multi-Agent, Component-Based and Object-Oriented Systems

Abstract

The general trend of the information technology evolution towards component-based and software agent-based systems calls for an integration of the analysis and design methods proposed up to now. As a step towards such an integration, we propose changing the paradigm on which analysis and design methods rely, shifting from the individual-centered notion of a “service” to the group-centered notion of a “game”. Instead of designing a system on the basis of the services that each object or component can provide, we propose considering the whole game in which agents, components and users can play various roles in order to perform some common task. We first review the recent evolution of analysis and design methods used to develop object-oriented, component-based, knowledge-based and multiagent systems. We propose an approach to specify the service game of a system based on the use of an extended form of use case maps. We show how this simple technique could help to the convergence of analysis and design methods used to specify systems using object-oriented, component-based, knowledge-based and multiagent approaches.