1. A control system including: a control application comprising a set of software objects distributable to a plurality of networked computer devices, and wherein the set of software objects comprises both host software objects and hosted software objects; a centralized diagnostics management tool facilitating monitoring operational status of the set of software objects of the control application; and wherein the set of software objects include: application objects that model entities within the control system, engine objects that host execution of the application objects in a run-time environment, and platform objects, corresponding to a physical computer system component for executing the engine objects and associated application objects, the platform objects each hosting one or more of the engine objects.