Anthony,
You missed one small point that is crucial in a large distributed
development system. The concept of scope, a large system that is made up of
loosely connected autonomous subsystems which send and receive data between
them only as required to perform a function of their own system.
The system supplying the data is an actor to the system requesting the
data. It is external, developed separately, with different purpose.
To the overall system, which ties all the subsystems together, it is part
of the process being developed. So, to the team developing application A,
the control system is merely an actor. To the team developing application
B, the control system is merely an actor. To the team integrating the whole
damn lot together A,B and the control system are just components. Note, B
and A are not actors of each other as they do not interface directly.
The situation becomes even more complicated when trying to include
"knowledge" in the control system as this then does not only respond to
prompt from the subsystems via their actors but can also instigate actions
on the subsystems.
In conclusion, do what figure out what fits well with your projects needs,
agree it with your team and get on with it. If it doesn't fit, don't use
it.
Mark
"Crain, Anthony R." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>@rational.com on 02/07/2001
06:39:02 PM
Please respond to "Crain, Anthony R." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent by: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Colin Gourlay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "'Pankaj
Chatterjee'"<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Rational Rose Forum
(E-mail)"<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
cc:
Subject: RE: (ROSE) Question About Actors
Actors are outside the system. The whole purpose of identifying actors is
to show the boundary of what is in the system and what is outside of the
system.
The "of value" part of your explanation is good though. And it does not
conflict with the idea that actors are external.
Stakeholders in RUP are anyone who would be materially affected by the
system if it were built correctly. But not all stakeholders are actors.
The difference? Some stakeholders interact with the system, others do
not. The ones that do are actors, the ones that do not are not. The
actor name may match up with the stakeholder name, but often do not.
Jane runs a university, and if we build a registration system, she is
materially affected, thus is a stakeholder. However, there may be no
requirements that the system directly help her run the university, so
there would be no use cases for her. Thus she would not be an actor
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