This exact conversation has persisted in many groups. Myself and Matt Mackenzie built a patterns template to capture use cases and derive requirements from which to feed into development of specifications. The idea is to start capturing the high level business conversation then gradually refine it to a set of architectural patterns, expressed in UML notation, to speak to implementers (see line #176 for details). The architectural patterns metamodel is based on the works of Christopher Alexander and the infamous gang of four. The work is publicly, freely available at:
http://www.nickull.net/work/MacKenzie-Nickull_ArchitecturalPatternsRefer enceModel-v0.91.pdf If this is relevant, we would consider donating this IP to IETF. Duane Nickull ******************************* Adobe Systems, Inc. - http://www.adobe.com Vice Chair - UN/CEFACT http://www.uncefact.org/ Chair - OASIS SOA Reference Model Technical Committee Personal Blog - http://technoracle.blogspot.com/ ******************************* -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dick Hardt Sent: Monday, January 23, 2006 12:12 PM To: Digital Identity Exchange Subject: Re: [dix] use cases Well, my question was more of "What is a use case?" Is it a detailed "Detailed Scenario"? I retained Tim Bray of XML fame to assist me with documenting SXIP 1.0. His recommendation (which he and I executed on) was to write scenarios, where the user activity and what happens on the wire are discussed so that the reader can tie it all together. We wrote different scenarios so that the reader would be able to see enough facets of the protocol to understand it. The use of names and specific activities made it easy for the reader to grasp. I think this is a useful, but non-normative way to document a protocol. I think this might be too detailed. Here is a simple example of what I think a use case is: Sally wants to register at a website. She does some action that sends her to her software agent that manages her identity, that allows her to select which data she wants to release. When returning to the site later, Sally clicks on a button to log into the site. Sally is in control of what data was released to the site. Sally did not have to type in any of the data. Sally does not have new username and password for the site. -- Dick On 23-Jan-06, at 11:43 AM, James Benedict wrote: > Good question! Especially since we have a "chicken and > egg" issue here. Personally, I'de like to see some > "example executions" of the current draft to get a > better understanding of how it works... and to spot > potential issues. > > However, in the real (well, maybe ideal is a better > word) software engineering world, the "use cases" > would represent an expected "walk through" of the > application functionality ... from which requirements > would be derived ... then the applications, protocols, > etc would be implemented. > > Interestingly enough, we already have the end-product. > Hence, my interest in "examples" of the current > draft. I'de rather take what we've got and analyse the > "use cases" to determine suitability than to try to > re-derive the draft from scratch, although some might > disagree with me here :) > > Since you put out the question Dick, what do you > propose? > > -- > James > > --- Dick Hardt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> Great to hear that James! >> >> I think it would be useful for us all to agree what >> a use case is. :-) >> >> On 23-Jan-06, at 11:29 AM, James Benedict wrote: >> >>> If no one else volunteers, then i'll do it. I'm >>> working on some use cases for myself anyways... >> still >>> trying to get a picture in my head of exactly what >>> this protocol is doing. >>> >>> I think in pretty (or at least ASCII) pictures :) >>> >>> -- >>> James >>> >>> --- John Merrells <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> If people want to offer up some use cases i'll >>>> wrangle them into an >>>> ID... >>>> >>>> (I'd rather somebody else did the editing on this >>>> draft though...) >>>> >>>> John >>>> >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> dix mailing list >>>> [email protected] >>>> https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/dix >>>> >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> dix mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/dix >>> >>> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> dix mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/dix >> > > > _______________________________________________ > dix mailing list > [email protected] > https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/dix > > _______________________________________________ dix mailing list [email protected] https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/dix _______________________________________________ dix mailing list [email protected] https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/dix
