Distributed software systems: from objects to agents

With the rapid increase in both the amount of available information and extent of computer interconnections, there is a growing interest in systems that can provide more efficient and flexible access. The paper describes research and development into open distributed software systems frameworks designed to: (a) provide access to legacy systems, and (b) accommodate the introduction of new systems without requiring recompilation. The focus of this research is to use existing distributed object technology and extend it with ideas from agent based software engineering. An example of this work, as it is applied to the development of an open environment for carrying out connectionist computations (such as neural network analysis), is discussed in detail