Decision Criteria for Tool Selection in Agent-based Development

Agent-oriented process model, proven methods and appropriate tools for supporting the process and methods are major issues that software engineers and managers should decide about them in developing agent-based systems. Software engineers should select appropriate tools when faced with a set of various tools with different functionalities and characteristics. In this paper, based on the existing practices in software engineering tools assessment and our experiences in developing agent-based systems, we present and define major decision criteria for a tool selection framework in agent-based development. Developers can use this framework for evaluating and selecting appropriate tool(s) for doing their development tasks. These criteria can be used in developing a decisionmaking technique for tool selection in agent-based development.