Sincere apologies to the list. Please disregard this message. (01)
steffen (02)
Steffen Lindek wrote: (03)
> > A colleague (many years ago) was selling a bespoke system to BT (I
> might be
> > wrong about the client). He asked them what currency they wanted the
> system
> > to use. They said GBP. He did not believe them, so he included
> currency as a
> > variable rather than GBP as a constant. Six months later, he was able to
> > charge them a significant amount of money to enable a few more
> currencies.
> > He did not feel obliged to mention that this took next to no work.
>
> Maybe we shouldn't have mentioned to CCLI that our system is so generic
> and flexible. It deprives us from future income... ;-)
>
> steffen
>
>
> Chris Partridge wrote:
>
>
>>Pat,
>>
>>I assume that you do not want me to explain fruitfulness as used in the
>>philosophy of science - there was a pointer in my original email. You will
>>find concrete examples galore from science there.
>>
>>So I will try and give you some from computer systems. There are very simple
>>examples which start to they make the point but do not get to the heart of
>>the matter.
>>
>>A colleague (many years ago) was selling a bespoke system to BT (I might be
>>wrong about the client). He asked them what currency they wanted the system
>>to use. They said GBP. He did not believe them, so he included currency as a
>>variable rather than GBP as a constant. Six months later, he was able to
>>charge them a significant amount of money to enable a few more currencies.
>>He did not feel obliged to mention that this took next to no work.
>>
>>The inverse of this is a joke this side of the Atlantic, that US computer
>>systems seem to assume that there is only one currency - USD.
>>
>>I think we can all come up with examples like this. What these lack though
>>is the important ingredient - that the functionality was completely
>>unexpected. I think this is where ontology (as a picture of reality comes
>>in).
>>
>>In the preface of my book - Business Objects - I note "Furthermore, as the
>>users became more familiar with their systems, something remarkable begins
>>to happen. The systems seem to have captured the essence of the business.
>>We realised this when we found them being used to handle areas that had not
>>been envisaged when we built the business model. For instance, on one
>>project the users found that their re-engineered securities back-office
>>system could already handle new financial instruments and situations that
>>no-one had thought of when the system was built."
>>
>>What happen here was that we were working with corporate actions, which
>>because of tax laws, are quite convoluted. After the system was implemented
>>we went down to the users to see how things were going. They explained to
>>use that it was handling extremely complicated situations really well - and
>>described the details. We then got annoyed with them because they had not
>>described these particular situations when we were building the ontology for
>>the system. We calmed down when we realised there was not a problem.
>>
>>When we reflected upon this, what we realised is that we had tried (and
>>succeeded to an extent) in capturing the main features of corporate actions
>>- and that the new (unrecognised) situations were just (very) unfamiliar
>>combinations of familiar features.
>>
>>In our work on re-engineering legacy systems, we find we can monitor this
>>(this is also described in the book). One re-engineers the legacy system in
>>chunks, if patterns/features that arise in one chunk are fruitful, they show
>>up in unfamiliar ways as you use them in successive chunks.
>>
>>On the face of it, it seems right to say that a system needs to be fit for a
>>particular purpose (and only that purpose). However, this assumes that we
>>can define the purpose in the detail needed to implement it. The history of
>>most computer systems (probably most systems) would tend to show that this
>>assumption is false. In that case, the design needs to be, as far as it can
>>be, for the unforeseen situations. One way of doing this is to try and make
>>the design reflect what is actually happening reasonably accurately - one
>>way of testing this is to see how fruitful the design is.
>>
>>Has this been concrete enough for you?
>>
>>Regards,
>>Chris
>>
>>
>>
>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>From: Pat Hayes [mailto:phayes@xxxxxxx]
>>>Sent: 24 January 2008 16:44
>>>To: [ontolog-forum]
>>>Cc: Chris Partridge
>>>Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Time representation
>>>
>>>At 9:04 AM +0000 1/24/08, Chris Partridge wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>....It seems to me when designing computer
>>>>systems (and the ontologies to support them) that we need to be sensitive
>>>
>>>to
>>>
>>>
>>>>the issue of fruitfulness.
>>>
>>>Chris, I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Can you
>>>make it a little more concrete?
>>>
>>>Pat Hayes
>>>--
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>>>
>>
>>
>>No virus found in this outgoing message.
>>Checked by AVG Free Edition.
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>>17:47
>>
>>
>>
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