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From Procedures, Objects, Actors, Components, Services, to Agents

A Comparative Analysis of the History and Evolution of Programming Abstractions

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The French School of Programming

Abstract

The objective of this chapter is to propose some retrospective analysis of the evolution of programming abstractions, from procedures, objects, actors, components, services, up to agents, by replacing them within a general historical perspective. Some common referential with three axes/dimensions is chosen: action selection at the level of one entity, coupling flexibility between entities, and abstraction level. We indeed may observe some continuous quest for higher flexibility (through notions such as late binding, or reification of connections) and higher level of abstraction. Concepts of components, services and agents have some common objectives (notably, software modularity and reconfigurability), with multi-agent systems raising further concepts of autonomy and coordination, notably through the notion of auto-organization and the use of knowledge. We hope that this analysis helps to highlight 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.

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Acknowledgements

The premises of this study go back to an interview that we conducted with Les Gasser on the relationship between objects and agents, published in a journal special series on actors and agents [31]. We thank him for his pioneering and fundamental contribution to this reflection and we dedicate this chapter to his memory. We also would like to thank Pierre Cointe and Jean-François Perrot for having introduced us to the magic of programming. Last, we thank Jean-Marc Jézéquel, Joëlle Coutaz and Michel Raynal for their careful reading and constructive comments on the initial version of this chapter.

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  1. Sorbonne Université, CNRS, LIP6, Paris, France

    Jean-Pierre Briot

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Correspondence to Jean-Pierre Briot .

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  1. Constructor Institute, Schaffhausen, Switzerland

    Bertrand Meyer

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Briot, JP. (2024). From Procedures, Objects, Actors, Components, Services, to Agents. In: Meyer, B. (eds) The French School of Programming. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-34518-0_6

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