AOSE Methodologies and Comparison of Object Oriented and Agent Oriented Software Testing

Abstract

In today's world, the complexities in developing software is growing faster. So, the software is failed to produce flexibility, robustness, efficiency and reliability. To satisfy these demands, agent oriented technique is evolved in the software engineering field. The agent oriented model is an alternative for object oriented model because the object orientation is not capable of solving these problems. The agent oriented technology is adapted because it solves the problems related to the social and organization which is not possible by the traditional model. It also provides solutions for real world problems. This is successful by introducing a new paradigm called agent. An agent is autonomous, proactive, responsiveness and sociality. So, it can act individually or it can interact with other agents in MAS (Multi-Agent System) to solve the problems. It can handle complex tasks and also has the ability to perform flexible action in an unpredictable environment. Hence, we need a methodology to implement the agent oriented technology for developing a system. Therefore, the Agent Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE) methodologies are evolved. Even though the AOSE methodologies has many advantages, they are not complete. The Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) includes phases such as analysis, design, implementation and testing. A methodology is said to be complete only when it covers all the phases of the SDLC. The AOSE methodology does not include the testing phase and so it is not complete. Testing is defined as the process of detecting the errors. As testing is essential, it should be included in the AOSE methodologies. The Object Oriented Software Testing (OOST) is used in the object oriented methodologies, but it cannot be incorporated in the agent oriented methodologies. This is because the object and the agent differs in some categories like agent properties which cannot be adapted by an object. Hence, a new testing technique was introduced to test the agent oriented systems is called as Agent Oriented Software Testing (AOST). It is the extension of OOST in which the objects are replaced by the agents. The individual agent, the communication between the agents and the communication between agent and environment are tested using AOST technique.