RE: [epf-dev] No coding in Inception

[Jim Ruehlin <jruehlin@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Jean, thanks for your thoughts. We'll take them into consideration at
the Committers Meeting this week.

 

The concern that Brian raised is, should we explicitly indicate that
coding occurs during Inception, and if so how should we do it. We expect
that many projects that use OpenUP/Basic as-is will not require coding
during Inception. Many small projects are not novel or are adding
features to existing systems. So proving the architecture or other
significant system elements could be as easy as pointing to an existing
system or framework and saying that we're confident the architectural
approach is already proven.

 

This isn't meant to prohibit implementing prototypes and the like during
Inception. But OpenUP/Basic is meant to be "minimal, complete, and
extensible". If we want to fulfill the minimal requirement, do we
include implementation during Inception? This is a question we'll be
asking at the meeting.

 

One possible approach would be to create a second capability pattern for
Inception. So there could be one Inception CP that doesn't include
implementation, and another one that does. CPs can be replaced and the
process re-published using EPF Composer.

 

Thanks,

Jim

 

____________________

Jim Ruehlin, IBM Rational

RUP Content Developer

Eclipse Process Framework (EPF) Committer www.eclipse.org/epf

email:   jruehlin@xxxxxxxxxx

phone:  760.505.3232

fax:      949.369.0720

 

________________________________

From: epf-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:epf-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of "Jean Pommier" <pommier@xxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2007 11:08 AM
To: epf-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [epf-dev] No coding in Inception

 


I've been on the list for a few weeks now, so sorry if my reaction to 
this thread his missing enough context and OpenUP knowledge. Yet, since 
we leverage OpenUP in our company, I want to make sure we are not 
missing something around the Inception concept. We also met with Ricardo
to assess our use of and contribution to OpenUP, hence the access to 
this -dev list. 

Bryan Lyons wrote: 
> We should discuss the absence of actual coding in the Inception phase 
of OpenUP 
> as demonstrated by the Inception Iteration capability pattern and then
discuss 
> the notion that other parts of the process and method characterize the
architecture 
> has had its feasibility "confirmed"... with no code. This is an issue 
worthy of 
> discussion with broad participation by the OpenUP/Basic authors. 

- First, in our software business we meet prospects and customers either
before they actually launched their project or after. We characterize 
the switch from Inception to Elaboration as the official Go/No Go 
decision. Within the Inception phase, project stakeholders may have to 
demonstrate some concepts and feasibility to get management buy in and, 
in the software context, that usually requires some actual modeling and 
coding (especially performance benchmarks). 

- Another thing is that, to my knowledge, RUP has some coding involved 
during the Inception phase (which again makes most sense to me). 
Therefore, following generalization principles, I don't see how OpenUP, 
which is more general as a foundation, couldn't include the idea of some
coding during Inception. Doesn't mean that there is necessary coding 
involved in all situations, but it makes OpenUP more applicable to all 
cases by supporting the idea of some coding. 

- If the idea behind the previous statement is that a 
formal/theoretical/abstract method/approach (as opposed to pragmatic 
coding) should be used in Inception, then I think this reduces the 
usability and applicability of OpenUP to quite sophisiticated entities 
and companies, maybe not something we wish for. 

Again, sorry for the long post, hope I'm not too far off topic. In 
particular by overstating the Inception/Elaboration inflection point. 
Thanks for letting me know otherwise. As suggested by Bryan, looking 
forward to hearing back from the OpenUP/Basic authors anyway. 

Jean. 

PS: by curiosity, is there any other clear cut such as this one on other
disciplines in the phases? I mean a discipline which would not be 
present in a certain phase. I thought there was at least "some" of each 
discipline in every iteration, some meaning a lot or a little depending 
on the phase. But at least some. Makes the process less directive, but 
more flexible and applicable. 

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