From: VAAGA@gribb.hsr.no (Vaaga, Hans Egil       7-93)
Subject: Re: New OOD/OOA method?
Organization: Rogaland University Centre
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 12:51:15 GMT

In article <O5P9FSV@minnie.zdv.uni-mainz.de> beckmann@Informatik.Mathematik.Uni-Mainz.DE (Markus Beckmann) writes:

>In article <VAAGA.19.723926302@gribb.hsr.no>, VAAGA@gribb.hsr.no 
>(Vaaga, Hans Egil       7-93) writes:

>|> ...
>|>                       Infact I really don't know if it is an OOA- or an 
>|> OOD-method. 
>|> 

>1. Some questions about the method: 

>|>                           ... You take a blanksheet of paper and 
>|> put the main idea in the middle. You put a circle around it  ... 

>What has to be taken as the 'main idea'? Could it be ROTATE as well? 

Answer: You take the main idea. If you are developing a program it will be 
the name of the program in this circle.


The example is not so good, and I must tell that this OOA-"method" is 
only an idea to develop so that it can fit OOA (or OOD). 


>|>               ... On these lines you put your thoughts (
>|> which comes from the main idea). ... 

>Are words like DRAW, AREA, FILL and SIDES labels for the lines or do 
>these lines end in other circles containing these words? 

Mind-map does not work like that, but it could be developed in that way.


>|>                        ... To calculate an area of a polygon is 
>|> difficult, and this makes the class polygon a deferred class. ...

>How can I see which 'degree of difficulty' makes a class a deferred class?

As I said, it's not an good example.

>2. What makes a method 'OO'? Does it only have to fit into the OO{A,D,P}-
>process, must it support OO-concepts or must it be based on OO-concepts 
>(and only those)?

The reason why I think it's OO, is because the "Mind-map"-method works best 
if you put the noun first (the object) and then draw lines out from it with 
the verbs/actions (the methods). It also support the prototyping idea. You 
can easy expand it, change it and put more details on it.  


>3. I think the method of mind-maps (as described) is neither OOA nor OOD.
>   It's not ooA, because it does not support the analysis of concrete 
>problems if you see the analysis-phase as a part of the software life 
>cycle (for example: you don't know when you can stop your work of writing 
>words and drawing lines).

I thought you where supposed to make the class whole. That is support it 
with all the nessesary methods. Maybe I am misunderstanding your point of 
view.


>4. Still I think that this is a good method. It could be used as a kind 
>of brain storming/writing and I would place it between the analysis- and 
>the design-phase. To make its results usable it should at least support 
>different levels of abstraction and different kinds of 'keywords' 
>(classes, types, methods, features, ...).
>   In the given example POLYGON and TRIANGLE are separeted by the 'knots'
>SIDES and THREE. But there can be more pathes from one knot to an other.
>So it might become very difficult to draw all the needed aspects in one
>picture (planar graphs).

As I said, it must be developed to fit OO.


Vaaga
Xref: sparky comp.object:4567 comp.lang.c++:18116 comp.lang.eiffel:1378 comp.lang.objective-c:694 comp.lang.smalltalk:2558