From Procedures, Objects, Actors, Components, Services, to Agents -- A Comparative Analysis of the History and Evolution of Programming Abstractions
This is an incremental retrospective analysis for researchers in programming languages and software engineering, highlighting foundational trends without proposing new methods.
The chapter analyzes the historical evolution of programming abstractions, from procedures to agents, identifying a continuous trend towards increased flexibility and abstraction, with multi-agent systems introducing autonomy and coordination.
The objective of this chapter is to propose some retrospective analysis of the evolution of programming abstractions, from {\em procedures}, {\em objects}, {\em actors}, {\em components}, {\em services}, up to {\em agents}, %have some compare concepts of software component and of agent (and multi-agent system), %The method chosen is to by replacing them within a general historical perspective. Some common referential with three axes/dimensions is chosen: {\em action selection} at the level of one entity, {\em coupling flexibility} between entities, and {\em abstraction level}. We indeed may observe some continuous quest for higher flexibility (through notions such as {\em late binding}, or {\em reification} of {\em connections}) and higher level of {\em abstraction}. Concepts of components, services and agents have some common objectives (notably, {\em software modularity and reconfigurability}), with multi-agent systems raising further concepts of {\em autonomy} and {\em coordination}. notably through the notion of {\em auto-organization} and the use of {\em knowledge}. We hope that this analysis helps at highlighting some of the basic forces motivating the progress of programming abstractions and therefore that it may provide some seeds for the reflection about future programming abstractions.