A framework is a reusable design that can be adapted to support and enhance the development of systems and to supply a generic structure to systems developed by an organization. Alongside design patterns, they aid in the standardization and optimization of approaches to software development. A variety of of types of framework exist. There are technical frameworks, such as the classes in the Java Development Kit, that provide predefined classes and components for a variety of programming tasks. There are application frameworks such as that developed by the IBM San Francisco project, that focus on the development of generic classes and components for business systems. They are developement-oriented frameworks that structure the repository according to some development method such as the Unified Process. Some CASE tools permit the incorporation and definition of frameworks, represented as a set of predefined models available at the start of a project.
(UML, Scahum outlines series, 2001)
Frameworks are skeletal structure of porgrams that must be fleshed out to build a complete application (Wirf-Brock, et al., 1991). The aim of this research is to create a methodology and framework that lets developers of object-oriented systems and agent-oriented systems for problem solving readily handle new tasks, plans, activities, etc within a well-define structure. These frameworks should have the constructs necessary to handle the complex knowledge based and integration of large programs that are typically for forest planning, such as geographic information systems and forest growth simulation.