All the discussion here over the last few days on the Domain Neutral Component (DNC), modeling with Archetypes, and the Archetype Domain Shape (ADS), has reminded me about the book Streamlined Object Modeling by Jill Nicola, Mark Mayfield and Mike Abney.
I was recommended this book by Stephen Palmer so he will undoubtedly say something about it too.
In it, Nicola et al extend the work of Coad and Mayfield from the Object Models book, but in a slightly different direction from Archetypes and the DNC. It's another way of looking at a similar thing. They define "Pattern Players" which are like Archetypes and then they go on to deliver 12 patterns - each of which is like a mini-DNC.
The work has particular relevance to Nuno's questions because it analyses in a very fine-grained manner the whole-part relationships amongst pattern players.
The big "Ah ha!" for me with this book was the confirmation of something I'd seen before - the notion that a class can be more than one pattern player. If you view the Archetype of a class as a form of "is a" relationship across meta-model layers, then Streamlined Object Modeling represents the notion that there can be multiple inheritance of these. I had seen this before with Descriptions and Things and with Things and Roles where it depended which angle you were looking from whether something would be considered one or the other.
This led me to one conclusion - there is a lot more work to be done in this area before it is wholely resolved. The DNC represented a huge step forward and so do all of Nicola, Mayfield and Abney's 12 patterns. The Streamlined Object Modeling book gives the FDD team member another set of tools to use in Step 1 - Modeling. More work and more debate are healthy. Only through debate will progress be made.
David
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David J. Anderson
author of "Agile Management for Software Engineering"
http://www.agilemanagement.net/
 | Streamlined Object Modeling: Patterns, Rules, and Implementation author: Jill Nicola,Mark Mayfield,Mike Abney asin: 0130668397 |
A Review?
Would someone like to post a review of this book for us all?
Jeff
Excellent book!
Hi just read it from top to bottom, its just mind "structuring" if not opening. I'll probably post a review soon (not very long though).
But before that, I have to add that in IMHO this book is an excellent complement to the DNC approach and vice versa (Java Modeling in Color with UML: Enterprise Components and Process). Meaning that each of these books stop where the otherone one starts all the way IMHO.
I clearly can envision an unified methodology to Object Modeling integrating both object associations and object collaborations steamed from the work presented by both books.
If one adds the book "A Practical Guide to Feature-Driven Development" then probably it can be the start to an elaboration of an FDUP (Feature-Driven Unified Process) for software development.
Nuno Lopes
PS: Actually I prefer the archytype based description of business object associations then a pattern based one. It is just more appealing when trying to understand the overall picture of specific patterns. But Streamlined Object Modelling wins points when describing how objects should collaborate within each DNC leg.