Hi Martin,
The purpose of work product slots is to support practices to be isolated from each other. So if I have an Architecture slot, different practices can attach artifacts to that slot. Other practices that don't know about the artifacts can use that slot instead of having a dependency on those other practices. We like practices that can be mixed and matched with other practices.
The problem with using a slot as an output is a semantic one. If I have an artifact that's output from a task, I need to talk about how I'm transforming that artifact. I need to be more specific and precise than if I'm using an artifact (or slot) as an input. I could say "Update the Architecture to reflect your decisions", but that's not very helpful. It's much more helpful to say something like "Add component interfaces to the Architecture Interface document by describing public methods in an abstract way that can later be refactored into the target source code. Provide a UML diagram as well as a textual description. For example..." We've found that if you're modifying the same artifact in different practices, the practices might be tightly coupled and maybe should be refactored.
That said, there are artifacts that live in the Core plug-ins, which means they can be used directly by practices without reference to slots. In open source, we take care to place artifacts there that are very common, and even then people sometimes decide not to use them. But if you need an artifact for your organization that is modified by different practices, you can add them to a core plug-in maintained by your organization, e.g. core.xxx.my-org. Then you are allowed, in the context of UMF, to use those artifacts in any practice you want, as input or output.
- Jim
Jim Ruehlin
Jazz Jumpstart Team
jruehlin@xxxxxxxxxx
949.545.8912
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http://jazz.net/
http://jazzpractices.wordpress.com/
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-----epf-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote: -----
To: "epf-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx" <epf-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Krammer, Martin" <Martin.Krammer@xxxxxxx>
Sent by: epf-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx
Date: 02/07/2011 10:58PM
Subject: [epf-dev] Work product slots
Hello everyone,
I read about the work product slots concept in the MAM, and what confuses me is the information that work product slots should never be used as an output of a task. What happens if one work product is the result of several tasks (e.g. the wp is improved throughout a process), so from my understanding it would make sense to set up work product slots as outputs, in order to maintain the independence of single tasks or practices.
Any comments?
Martin
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