Ashley, Good analogy! Composers write the scores so others can play and listeners can listen to it. The players plays what the composers wrote and they may make their own little arrangements. If the music is recorded, listeners are able to switch their players on/off, change volume, and other settings on their player.
The fun part is the DJ, who actually do not write the scores nor play an instrument but are able to make their own arrangements of a music by mixing and rearranging. Are DJ's reading scores when they are playing a music? Probably not. Composers and players are like IT people. Modeling language like UML is used to convey thoughts between composers and players. Listeners are like business managers/executives. They are able to start/stop projects and set budgets. DJs are like business process owners. (I know it isn't exactly like this because we're still at the level of writing "custom" music.) Cheers, H.Ozawa Ashley at Metamaxim wrote: > Dan, Steve, Hitoshi > > I think, perhaps, there is an analogy between modelling and music. > > A composer uses musical notation as the medium for composition and, through > familiarity with the medium, can "hear the music" from the notes on the page. > For a non-musician, however, the notes are a foreign language and need to be > heard to be understood. > > Similarly, an experienced modeller uses graphical or other notations to > define the behaviour of software. Through familiarity with the notations, the > modeller can "envisage the behaviour" from the diagrams he or she draws. > > Both the musician and the modeller are performing an act of translation: from > static representations on the page into (in the first case) sound and (in the > second case) interactive dynamics. Arguably, both forms of translation > require a skill that has to be learned and practised. > > In order to convey a piece of music to a non musician, the composer will play > it on a piano thereby realising the translation. Similarly, to convey a > behavioural model it may be necessary to render it into the behaviour it > represents. This could be by execution (if the model is executable) or by > some form of manual simulation. > > It may be that "standard modelling language for business people" is not > possible, any more than a form of musical notation suitable for non musicians. > > Rgds > Ashley >
