Re: [Ag Meinungsfindungstool] [MG] The way forward according to technicians (Marc of Meinungsfindungstool)

["marc" <marc AT merkstduwas.de>]

Hi Mike,

I have no doubt about overplans. But if I understand you right, there is not 
just one, but an unlimited number of overplans around. Everyone could have 
it's own overplan. That would make it hard to compare the designs against, 
to find the common ground, I guess.

But if we would have found one single overplan by consenus, than we could 
use this to identify common ground as you suggested:
> Suppose a design is intended to fit within a larger plan for moving
> forward.  Could we take that plan as the reason for the design?

Yes, I think so.

> Then we might have two different designs that are difficult to
> compare, but we know that both are intended for the same larger plan.
> Would this be an example of what you mean by "common ground" between
> technical designs?

Yes.

> So a common reason or rationale would be an example of common ground.

Yes.

> My best guess so far is that you mean one of the
> following (at least one) is shared by the two designs:
>
>    * design pattern
>    * overplan
>    * problem to solve, or goal to reach
>    * requirement
>      - etc - (this list is not exhaustive)
>
> Are there any items you'd remove or add, Marc?  Please *do* remove
> "overplan" if you have doubts about it.  Maybe it's not a proper
> instance of common ground, but just a way of identifying it; or maybe
> it's not helpful at all here.

Maybe "design pattern" is not the best fit here. But I have no better 
wording for it right now.

I think comparing each two designs against these four topics might be a good 
starting point.

If we could agree on this, a next step might be to discuss the questionnaire 
for the survey that we are currently drafting at AG MFT?

Cheers
Marc


-----Original Message----- 
From: Michael Allan
Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2014 7:23 PM
To: start AT metagovernment.org ; Piraten AG Meinungsfindungstool
Subject: [MG] The way forward according to technicians (Marc of 
Meinungsfindungstool)

Marc said:
> We need to find out, what the "common ground" might be. ...

Yes.  Looking at the practical steps below, it would help to
understand what kind of thing "common ground" might be:

 Compare the technical designs
   |
   V
 Identify the common ground
   |
   V
 Focus on the common ground

That's a summary of the way forward, as I think you see it.

> ... I would tend to say that software always exists for a reason
> (e.g. to earn money, to learn something or to solve a concrete
> problem). Therefore I think we might find the common ground by
> comparing the reasons why each design exists first.

Suppose a design is intended to fit within a larger plan for moving
forward.  Could we take that plan as the reason for the design?

Then we might have two different designs that are difficult to
compare, but we know that both are intended for the same larger plan.
Would this be an example of what you mean by "common ground" between
technical designs?

So a common reason or rationale would be an example of common ground.

> Maybe we could compare these three aspects of each two designs?
> (A) What problems does it try to solve?

Suppose the plans for moving forward are in a step-wise form, making
them "overplans" as we've defined them.  And suppose the two designs
fit the same overplan, as shown here:

 Overplan 512
 ------------
  Step1
    |
  Step2
    |
  Step3  (design A fits here)
    |
  Step4  (design B fits here)
    |
  Step5
    |
  Step6

Then we could say both designs solve (or help to solve) the problems
of executing Step5 and Step6.  From the viewpoint of an overplan, the
main problems to solve are always the executions of the future steps.

> (B) What requirements are given?

Likewise we could say that both designs require Step1 and Step2.  From
the viewpoint of an overplan (again), the main requirements are always
the executions of past steps.

> (C) What design patterns are used?

Although this doesn't fit so neatly with the overplanning scheme I
outline above, that's okay.  Here I'm only interested in what you mean
by "common ground".  My best guess so far is that you mean one of the
following (at least one) is shared by the two designs:

  * design pattern
  * overplan
  * problem to solve, or goal to reach
  * requirement
    - etc - (this list is not exhaustive)

Are there any items you'd remove or add, Marc?  Please *do* remove
"overplan" if you have doubts about it.  Maybe it's not a proper
instance of common ground, but just a way of identifying it; or maybe
it's not helpful at all here.

Mike


marc said:
> We need to find out, what the "common ground" might be. I would tend to 
> say
> that software always exists for a reason (e.g. to earn money, to learn
> something or to solve a concrete problem). Therefore I think we might find
> the common ground by comparing the reasons why each design exists first.
>
> We at AG MFT processed the following steps, before we started to implement
> something: problem analysis, requirements engineering and the technical
> design.
>
> Maybe we could compare these three aspects of each two designs?
>
> (A) What problems does it try to solve?
>
> (B) What requirements are given?
>
> (C) What design patterns are used?
>
> What do you think?

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