Most systems have the properties they have because they were designed that way, either by humans or by nature, not because they “emerged”.
Systems engineering
What is a system?
Since much or our lives today depend on systems and many of the biggest risks for individuals and for humanity as a whole emanate from systems, it is imperative that we have proper methods and tools to build useful and safe systems.
Seeing the pattern – or not
My late roommate from Stanford, John Vlissides (he passed away much too early), went on to co-author a book Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software that has had quite an impact on the software development community. According to Wikipedia it was in its 39th printing in 2011. I read Continue Reading
Meticuously matching metamodels
Many commonly used tools assume a very specific conceptual model of the world. The tools might be geared to manage classes, operations, attributes, and relations (UML editors), fields, projects, screens, and roles (Jira), inputs, outputs, controls, and mechanisms (IDEF0 editors), or filters, pins, and connectors (DirectShow GraphEdit). The chosen concepts Continue Reading
Do the things we model exist?
When describing a metamodel it is often difficult to keep apart the description (model) of something and the thing itself. If I want to describe a metaclass representing a system function for instance I find it easy to slip and start talking about the real-world function when the intention was Continue Reading
Everything is model-based
Engineers tend to think in terms of mental models. To describe a problem in terms of a model to start with improves the consistency and quality of the mental models.
What is the meaning of semantics?
“Semantics” is an abstract sounding word that is usually translated to “meaning”. But what is the meaning of “meaning”?
Going meta
Interpreting a meta-meta-model that is its own meta-model.
What’s a good tutorial?
A good tutorial is not written to demonstrate what the author knows but to change the behavior of the reader / user in the most effective manner by teaching new applicable skills.
Climbing Mt Complexity
Everybody is looking for quick fixes to complex problems, especially if the problem initially doesn’t look all that complex and a fix is needed yesterday. Unfortunately quick fixes (with emphasis on the “fix” part) to complex problems are rare.