Hi Michael,
<<We use messages to the external actor as our initial documentation of our requirements for this external interface - without having to specify the internals. Later, the another team is responsible for designing internals that conform to the requested interface.>> In fact what you are doing is creating a component specification model of your domain. That's good. If you want to formalise this approach and follow a defined process you might want to read UML Components by Daniels-Cheesman. Regards, -Richard PS I like to think of non-human actors (other systems) as interface partners. This means you will have use cases for human actors and ones for interface partners (B2B and so on). Use cases for humans drive the specification of UI Accessor components. Use cases for interface partners drive the specification of SI Accessor components. -----Original Message----- From: Peacock, Michael [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: February 19, 2002 9:34 AM To: E-mail Subject: RE: (ROSE) Actor with methods?? I find it useful to specify the messages to external system actors. Take, for example, an external database that you're planning to access with an, as yet, unwritten stored procedure. We use messages to the external actor as our initial documentation of our requirements for this external interface - without having to specify the internals. Later, the another team is responsible for designing internals that conform to the requested interface. If your work environment includes multiple teams that are responsible for different portions of the application (for instance - a database team and a OO team), your overall design has to be able to speak across team boundaries. "External" is a subjective concept. While you may not be designing the internals of your "external" actor in a given flow of events, you may find that that external system plays a big role in your overall application architecture, and this is a simple way to provide interface documentation. Cheers, Michael Michael Peacock Programmer/Analyst Avnet EM Web Services - The difference between theory and practice is that in theory, there's no difference between theory and practice, but in practice, there is. -----Original Message----- From: Eric D. Tarkington [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2002 12:06 AM To: E-mail Subject: Re: (ROSE) Actor with methods?? Pablo Schor wrote: > > Hi, this is a question about UML. Drawing a sequence diagram, messages > addressed to actors represent methods, but actors are human, how can they > have methods ? When the recipient of a message is an actor, the message is going outside the system boundary, so it need not concern you what the actor does with it. Whether the actor is a human, or an external system, you are not implementing the actor's internals. I think we should also try to remember that the messages that we put into sequence diagrams may be documented to look like code, but they give only the most superficial indications about the methods during analysis. To make sequence diagrams comprehensive enough to capture all of their objects' methods, you would have to do far more diagramming than most people do, possibly by a factor of 10 to 100 (depending on the complexity of the component). -Eric ************************************************************************ * Rose Forum is a public venue for ideas and discussions. * For technical support, visit http://www.rational.com/support * * Post or Reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Subscription Requests: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Archive of messages: * http://www.rational.com/support/usergroups/rose/rose_forum.jsp * Other Requests: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * * To unsubscribe from the list, please send email * To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Subject: <BLANK> * Body: unsubscribe rose_forum ************************************************************************* ************************************************************************ * Rose Forum is a public venue for ideas and discussions. * For technical support, visit http://www.rational.com/support * * Post or Reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Subscription Requests: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Archive of messages: * http://www.rational.com/support/usergroups/rose/rose_forum.jsp * Other Requests: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * * To unsubscribe from the list, please send email * To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Subject: <BLANK> * Body: unsubscribe rose_forum ************************************************************************* ************************************************************************ * Rose Forum is a public venue for ideas and discussions. * For technical support, visit http://www.rational.com/support * * Post or Reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Subscription Requests: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Archive of messages: * http://www.rational.com/support/usergroups/rose/rose_forum.jsp * Other Requests: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * * To unsubscribe from the list, please send email * To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Subject: <BLANK> * Body: unsubscribe rose_forum *************************************************************************
