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The first twenty years of agent-based software development with JADE

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Abstract

A recent survey provides convincing evidence that JADE is among the most widely used tools to develop agent-based software systems. It finds application in industrial settings and to support research, and it has been used to introduce students to software agents in various universities. This paper offers a perspective on the current state of JADE by first presenting a chronicle of the relevant events that contributed to make JADE what it is today. Then, this paper enumerates some of the abstractions that JADE helped to identify and that are now commonly adopted in the community of researchers and practitioners interested in software agents and agent-based software development. Such abstractions have been successfully applied to construct relevant software systems, and among them, this paper reports on a mission-critical system that uses the abstractions that JADE contributed to identify to serve millions of users every day. Finally, this paper discusses an outlook on the near future of JADE by sketching a recent project that could contribute to provide a new perspective on the use of JADE.

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Acknowledgements

Authors would like to gratefully thank the large and lively community of researchers, practitioners, students, and enthusiasts that contributed to the development and the application of JADE during its first twenty years. Authors would like to fondly and admiringly dedicate this paper to the memory of Fabio Bellifemine for his prominent contributions to the area of software agents and agent-based software development, and for his propulsive role in the conception and in the launch of JADE.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Scienze Matematiche, Fisiche e Informatiche, Università degli Studi di Parma, Parco Area delle Scienze 53/A, 43124, Parma, Italy

    Federico Bergenti & Stefania Monica

  2. TIM – Innovation, Via Reiss Romoli 274, 10148, Turin, Italy

    Giovanni Caire

  3. Dipartimento di Ingegneria e Architettura, Università degli Studi di Parma, Parco Area delle Scienze 181/A, 43124, Parma, Italy

    Agostino Poggi

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  1. Federico Bergenti
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  2. Giovanni Caire
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  4. Agostino Poggi
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Correspondence to Federico Bergenti.

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Bergenti, F., Caire, G., Monica, S. et al. The first twenty years of agent-based software development with JADE. Auton Agent Multi-Agent Syst 34, 36 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10458-020-09460-z

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