Interaction constitute a separate dimension of computing, orthogonal to (sequential) algorithmic computation: managing interaction is something more than simply I/O handling. Coordination is an emerging area of language, models, and systems meant to effectively manage the intrinsics complexity of interactive software architectures.
Coordination models and languages are meant to provide the abstractions and metaphors needed for the design of multi-component software systems (like multi-agent architectures). An outline of the most prominent coordination models and languages in literature will be actually given and a comparison will be tried, focussing in particular on their impact on the design of complex software architectures.
