Re: Interesting papers

t.koppelaars_at_inter.nl.net (Toon Koppelaars) wrote in message news:<6be44819.0406180857.70d86733_at_posting.google.com>...
>
> It's very sad that few people in IT nowadays know really (and I really
> mean "really") nothing about any of the principles of CS...

CS? They call it 'informatics' in the newer texts.

>
> In the "business rules" section, which has the attention of a lot of
> people nowadays, this is overly true. I hope my papers on the subject
> are of value to those who want to educate themselves.

I regret informing you that "business rules" are obsolete. I've just received a fantastic new book: "Business Services Orchestration: The Hypertier of Information Technology" by Waqar Sadiq (leads EDS's Web services strategy has head of several proof-of-concept teams for building future service offerings; no CS degree cited) and Felix Racca (no CS degree cited), Foreword by Michael Hammer, Cambridge University Press.

An excerpt from Hammer's foreward: "BSO recognizes that legacy systems will always be with us and that the road to process management has twists and turns that cannot be anticipated -- indeed, that it may never end. Accordingly, BSO argues that processes must be supported throught a hyper-layer of software that focuses directly on the process itself, independent of the underlying systems or other mechanisms used to implement it. This layer enables companies to define and document their processes, measure and manage them, and specify which parts will be performed by what system. The methodology directs how to address a business process, model it in the hyper-layer, and connect it to tangible systems and other service providers"

If you haven't been convinced yet then let me excerpt the outline of the book as given by the authors:

"NAVIGATING THROUGH THE GALAXY" "Lets be honest. The galaxy is large and complex. So we will divide it into two virtual sectors. Sector 1 comprises Chapters 1 through 4 and Sector 2 comprises Chapters 5 through 9.

Sector 1 was designed so that the Kirks, McCoys, Spocks, and Scottys could all feel reasonably comfortable in them. Although BSOs have the primary goal of increasing business performance, the orchestration of business services ends up weighing more havily on the Spocks and Scottys than on the Kirks and McCoys. Therefore, Sector 2 is a place where only the Spocks and Scottys would feel comfortable.

In Sector 1, we have Chapters 1 through 3, which introduce the main concepts of BSO. All of those chapters have parts that are definitely in the Kirks' domain of expertise, but few that are in McCoys' domain.  They are primarily oriented toward the Spocks. The Scottys will probably get impatient and want to move on quickly through Chapters 1 and 2, but we recommend that they look closely at the definitions. Chapter 3 is where the desired architecture for the USS Enterprise is discussed. The Spocks and Scottys must master this chapter because its the basis for understanding Sector 2; the Kirks may want to read it to understand the lingo."

I will stop here because it should be obvious by now that Cambridge University Press has finally come to its senses and will stop publishing junk like "Practical Foundations of Mathematics" by Paul Taylor with all those funny-looking symbols that market-driven professionals like Sadiq and Racca simply don't need. Received on Sun Jun 20 2004 - 10:04:33 CEST