So Modprod 2010 has come to an end and as last year I enjoyed the conference. Besides the obvious networking, highlights for me were the Requirements Modeling session with Kristian and the keynote by Hilding on Modellica for embedded systems. With regards to “our” performance I’ve only heard positive feeback on Gunilla’s tutorial “MBSE in a Lean context” and I think my 20-minute talk on Information Platforms was ok but
next time I will put more emphasis on “what” rather than “why”.
During Kristian’s session we had a discussion around the difference between abstraction and design… arguably sometimes obvious but still he drew a quick example serving as a good mental reminder.
Regardless how obvious it is what’s abstraction and what’s design above I think mistakes are common in practice.
I get a bit confused. To me 'abstraction' and 'design' are not contradicting notions. They are even not in the same dimension. Both examples given are very clearly abstractions, but of different things (eg 'chair' and 'modelling pattern'). The 'modelling pattern' might possibly be named an abstraction of the 'chair', but in this case it is a very specific kind of abstraction. both models could possibly be classified as design: one as a design pattern, and the other as a design model.
SvaraRadera/T
I cannot argue there but I guess I was a bit sloppy in the presentation... the point of the discussion was that the first model is easy to make (and is often the start when you e.g. do a problem domain model) but the next step is a bit trickier and easy to forget (or leave out/disregard/etc)...
SvaraRaderaThink about creating a management system for IKEA-chairs... the first model is correct, but the second one (which is an enhancement of the first) would probably enable re-use in the implementation... or?
Interesting discussion nevertheless :)
OK, I see what you mean, and it makes sense. But do you really think a refined enhancement show be labelled more abstract? I think a lot of people would agree to a statement like that, but to me it is a bit problematic. Maybe I have an issue with to much unmotivated abstraction being used/produced within our community.
SvaraRaderaPerhaps that is true and maybe what we really should say is that the second one represents the ability to detect patterns...
SvaraRaderaOr?