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Service Oriented Computing (SOC) and Agent Oriented Programming (AOP) are two promising paradigms exploited in the development of distributed systems. In fact, even if starting from different conceptual abstractions, both paradigms try to face unpredictability and complexity in wide and open distributed scenarios. In this context, they exhibit both strengths and weaknesses. The aim of this paper is to propose a comparison between these two paradigms, performed with regard to some issues peculiar of the development of distributed systems that developers must face: space decomposition, interactions among distributed components, reusability/customization, interoperability and security. Of course the purpose of this paper is not to define the 'best paradigm', rather the paper aims at providing developers with critical knowledge about advantages and limitations of the two paradigms. Finally, the need for a smart integration of the two paradigms is pointed out, which will lead to exploit the advantages of both in a joint way. Therefore, we briefly survey some proposals in this direction and report some considerations about them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]