Share via

Model Taxonomy

  • Article

At the excellent SPA conference (www.spa2005.org) John Daniels led a workshop session "A Taxonomy of Models".

Defining “model” as including any kind of language, he made a table of how models are used; or rather, he wrote the outer headings and we (working in an interesting process) filled in the content:

 

Conceptual

S/W Specification

S/W Implementation

Sketch (= informal)

[1]Understanding the business domain

[2]

Discussing S/W requirements

[3]

Block diagrams, architectural sketches

Blueprint (= precise but abstract/incomplete)

[4]

Formal models of the business – plans, constraints, rules, …

[5]

Test suites;

Formal S/W specification models

[6]

Pseudo-code;class and sequence diagrams etc

Program (= precise+complete enough to execute)

[7]

Domain simulations

[8]

DSL stuff – high-level but executable

[9]

Ordinary programs

 

He suggested that different methodological approaches can be characterised by the sequence you follow through the table. For example:

            * Tedious waterfall: 1-2-3-4-5-6-9

            * MDA: 5-6-9

            * Agile modeling: 1-{5-9}*

* XP: 9-9-9

            * DSLs: 1-8-9

Comments

  • Anonymous
    April 25, 2005
    Visual Studio Team System
    Beta 2 is out and thousands of you have downloaded and installed it with varying...
  • Anonymous
    April 25, 2005
    Both the model taxonomy and the characterization of methodological approaches are really interesting for understanding the current trends in software engineering, but I don't agree with the characterization of MDA. Why it begins with 5 and not with 7 or 8? I don't remember to see any restriction in the MDA guide which avoids building very expressive PIMs.
  • Anonymous
    May 04, 2005
    Javier, Maybe I'm caricaturing a bit - I suppose the interesting point here is that this does work as a basis for having some discussions.

    -Alan
  • Anonymous
    June 08, 2009
    PingBack from http://cellulitecreamsite.info/story.php?id=10306
  • Anonymous
    June 17, 2009
    PingBack from http://pooltoysite.info/story.php?id=8380