Towards a Science of Software Design
This event took place on Tuesday 19 April 2005 at 11:00
Professor John Mylopoulos University of Toronto/Trento
In his classic book titled "The Science of the Artificial" (published in 1969) Herbert Simon laments the fact that design is not taught in Engineering Schools, which instead clamor for scientific respectability. He then sketches what he calls a "Science of Design" whose basic ingredients include a logic of alternatives and a means-ends analysis for selecting "good enough" designs.
We review some of the history of Software Engineering since 1968 and discuss some the underlying concepts of Structured and Object-Oriented Software Development. We then focus on Agent-Oriented Software Development and argue that, unlike its older cousins, it supports the fundamental concepts that underly Simon's vision of a Science of Design. We also sketch a particular Agent-Orinted Software Development methodology, called Tropos, and the kind of tool support that it entails.
The research reported in this presentation was conducted with colleagues at the Universities of Toronto (Canada) and Trento (Italy).
This event took place on Tuesday 19 April 2005 at 11:00
In his classic book titled "The Science of the Artificial" (published in 1969) Herbert Simon laments the fact that design is not taught in Engineering Schools, which instead clamor for scientific respectability. He then sketches what he calls a "Science of Design" whose basic ingredients include a logic of alternatives and a means-ends analysis for selecting "good enough" designs.
We review some of the history of Software Engineering since 1968 and discuss some the underlying concepts of Structured and Object-Oriented Software Development. We then focus on Agent-Oriented Software Development and argue that, unlike its older cousins, it supports the fundamental concepts that underly Simon's vision of a Science of Design. We also sketch a particular Agent-Orinted Software Development methodology, called Tropos, and the kind of tool support that it entails.
The research reported in this presentation was conducted with colleagues at the Universities of Toronto (Canada) and Trento (Italy).
Future Internet
KnowledgeManagementMultimedia &
Information SystemsNarrative
HypermediaNew Media SystemsSemantic Web &
Knowledge ServicesSocial Software
Social Software is...

Interacting with other people not only forms the core of human social and psychological experience, but also lies at the centre of what makes the internet such a rich, powerful and exciting collection of knowledge media. We are especially interested in what happens when such interactions take place on a very large scale -- not only because we work regularly with tens of thousands of distance learners at the Open University, but also because it is evident that being part of a crowd in real life possesses a certain 'buzz' of its own, and poses a natural challenge. Different nuances emerge in different user contexts, so we choose to investigate the contexts of work, learning and play to better understand the trade-offs involved in designing effective large-scale social software for multiple purposes.
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