Methods of developing an application program to manage a distributed system or network are provided. In one embodiment, the method includes: a) defining managed objects in a resource definition language and storing the definition in resource definition language files, b) parsing the resource definition language files to ensure conformity with the resource definition language and creating an intermediate representation of the distributed system, c) processing the intermediate representation to form programming language classes, database definition files, and script files, d) developing a reusable asset center framework to facilitate development of the application program, the reusable asset center including an SNMP agent framework that provides SNMP interface functionality to the application program, and e) building the application program from the programming language classes, database definition files, script files, and the reusable asset framework.