Task-oriented engineering of coordinated software systems

In the context of Internet-based applications where heterogeneous, legacy entities should integrate and cooperate, the efficiency of the software production process is a key problem: yet, the classical development cycle and methodologies fall short, calling for ad hoc abstractions, methodologies and tools. In this work, we claim that a task-oriented approach can effectively support the design of highly-interactive applications, enabling even small development teams to afford complex software projects. By explicitly conceiving system engineering in terms of concurrent tasks plus task coordination, this approach promotes the application of innovative management techniques to improve the overall product development process, such as concurrent software engineering. Coordination models and infrastructures for agent-based systems will then be discussed as suitable means to deliver the full potential of this approach, sketching their support to concurrent software engineering techniques and to the development of a collaborative environment for concurrent engineering.