Tuesday, August 25, 2009

data modeling - how useful it can be

I'm very interested in my new work on a selection process for data modeling languages and tools.

To bridge the gap between those who navigate DTDs and Schemas at the line by line level and those who are non-technical editorial types, data modeling diagrams can be quite useful. Also useful for a more conceptual analysis of your content/data, which might reveal some things that you might miss in looking at low level coding.

There are a lot of tools to choose from, and a lot of potential applications, whether looking at physical, logical, or conceptual data modeling, entity relationships, taxonomies, metadata models, and more.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

A priori systems development rant

Again I have come into contact with a priori requirements 'gathering'. It is worth a general rant because it is so prevalent out there.

Developing a system for end users out of the mind of systems experts alone causes confusion in the requirements process - and holds things up.

Instead, please find out what the stakeholders need and then use your reasoning to deduce an efficient way to achieve those needs. And use this to limit your scope to only what is really required - don't spend money on one additional feature. Justify every feature in writing. And do not, by any means, create a sophisticated state of the art system if it isn't necessary!

The world will be a lot better for it.