In the Model-Driven Architecture (MDA, http://www.omg.org/mda/) approach of the Object Management Group (OMG), modelling is identified as the core of state-of-the-art software engineering that is scientifically well founded. According to MDA, programming, in the sense of building software systems, will eventually become modelling. In the presentation, I will first analyse based on my experience with industry, what kinds of agents would the industry currently need. I will illustrate my analysis with some real-life examples. After that, I will argue that the abstraction of agent opens a new avenue to model-driven software engineering. Finally, I will present in greater detail one possible method for building by means of high-level business modelling agent-based software systems and briefly dwell on other options.
Kuldar Taveter obtained his PhD (Eng) from Tallinn University of Technology (Estonia, EU) in June 2004. He also holds the degrees of DipEng and MSc (Eng) from the same university. Kuldar's research interests are agent-oriented domain analysis and software engineering, software agents and ontologies. Prior to joining the University of Melbourne as a postdoctoral research fellow, he was working as a research scientist for VTT Information Technology (Technical Research Centre of Finland) which acts as a mediator between academy and industry. At the University of Melbourne, Kuldar is working in the areas of agent-oriented software engineering and ontology reconciliation.