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Scope and Objectives

The reuse community has become increasingly aware of the need for systematic comparisons of domain analysis (DA) methods. One important use of such comparative evaluations would be as an aid in method and technology selection for companies considering pilot domain analysis projects. One drawback in comparisons to date is that they treat DA methods in a monolithic way, where in practice users of these methods tend to borrow elements from different approaches to suit their needs. There would be considerable value in a more fine- grained basis for comparison.

The impetus behind this working group was to focus on one specific aspect of domain analysis methods, the various strategies employed to represent commonality and variability across multiple systems within a domain. Different methods adopt different approaches to this problem. One of the assumptions behind our approach to the topic was that representation issues could be usefully dealt with separately from domain engineering process issues. Of course, some methods are closely allied to the representation technique chosen, while other methods attempt to be neutral with respect to the representation technique employed.

The primary working group objectives were to develop a comparative framework for domain model representation strategies, including: general requirements for domain model representations; differentiating features for assessment; and, if possible, risks and benefits of particular representation strategies and other guidelines for representation selection, fusion, and technology transfer.

A secondary objective was to practice some informal domain modeling ourselves in developing the framework products; and to use this process to deepen our understanding of the nature of domain modeling and its relation to other kinds of modeling (system modeling, knowledge modeling, object modeling, etc.)



Larry Latour
Sat Oct 7 22:45:23 EDT 1995