An agent-oriented approach to change propagation in software evolution

Software maintenance and evolution are inevitable activities since almost all software that is useful and successful stimulates user-generated requests for change and improvements. One of the most critical problems in software maintenance and evolution is to maintain consistency between software artefacts by propagating changes correctly. Although many approaches have been proposed, automated change propagation is still a significant technical challenge in software engineering. In this paper we present a novel, agent-oriented approach to deal with change propagation in evolving software systems that are developed using the Prometheus methodology. A metamodel with a set of the Object Constraint Language (OCL) rules forms the basis of the proposed framework. The underlying change propagation mechanism of our framework is based on the well-known Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) agent architecture. Traceability information and design heuristics are also incorporated into the framework to facilitate the change propagation process

A Framework for Agile Development of Component-Based Applications

Agile development processes and component-based software architectures are two software engineering approaches that contribute to enable the rapid building and evolution of applications. Nevertheless, few approaches have proposed a framework to combine agile and component-based development, allowing an application to be tested throughout the entire development cycle. To address this problematic, we have built CALICO, a model-based framework that allows applications to be safely developed in an iterative and incremental manner. The CALICO approach relies on the synchronization of a model view, which specifies the application properties, and a runtime view, which contains the application in its execution context. Tests on the application specifications that require values only known at runtime, are automatically integrated by CALICO into the running application, and the captured needed values are reified at execution time to resume the tests and inform the architect of potential problems. Any modification at the model level that does not introduce new errors is automatically propagated to the running system, allowing the safe evolution of the application. In this paper, we illustrate the CALICO development process with a concrete example and provide information on the current implementation of our framework

Abstract Platform and Transformations for Model-Driven Service-Oriented Development

In this paper, we discuss the use of abstract platforms and transformation for designing applications according to the principles of the service-oriented architecture. We illustrate our approach by discussing the use of the service discovery pattern at a platform-independent design level. We show how a trader service can be specified at a high-level of abstraction and incorporated in an abstract platform for service-oriented development. Designers can then build platform-independent models of applications by composing application parts with this abstract platform. Application parts can use the trader service to publish and discover service offers. We discuss how the abstract platform can be realized into two target platforms, namely Web Services (with UDDI) and CORBA (with the OMG trader)

Semantic model-driven development of service-centric software architectures

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is a recent architectural paradigm that has received much attention. The prevalent focus on platforms such as Web services, however, needs to be complemented by appropriate software engineering methods. We propose the model-driven development of service-centric software systems. We present in particular an investigation into the role of enriched semantic modelling for a modeldriven development framework for service-centric software systems. Ontologies as the foundations of semantic modelling and its enhancement through architectural pattern modelling are at the core of the proposed approach. We introduce foundations and discuss the benefits and also the challenges in this context