UML Rorschach Diagram!

I think I will make a submission to the OMG, a new diagram is needed in the forthcoming 4v of UML: the Rorschach Diagram! Like a Rorschach Test, you can put boxes an lines randomly in the diagram and let users perceive the semantics they want. Very useful to create UML models quickly not caring about the semantics that will be created by readers. They will also see what they want to see, and usually it's the solution they seek for their problems.

Best wishes, without frills

Best wishes, without frills, to all my friends, no video or pictures attached.
Best Wishes for Happy Holidays, not limited to just a few days: Best Wishes for the entire 2011,
Best Wishes to those who love me, and who does not because we all deserve a hope for better days, serenity and health.
Best wishes for those who have lost their jobs, who just found a new one and who is struggling to keep it.
Best Wishes to our grandfathers and grandmothers that with their babysitting are supporting the parents that have full time jobs.
Best Wishes to our politicians, who perhaps are now marketing oriented, but nevertheless I wish the best to all of them: I Wish they find a better way to lead Italy, maybe thinking less of their interests and of their leader.
Best wishes to the future generations, to the parents who grow them up, trying to instill an honest education and a direction in life.
Best Wishes to prisoners, for those that  tries to redeem their-self and those who can not, hoping that prisons are not only a place for suicide and conviction.
Best Wishes to those who have suffered a death in their family, and to those who have created a new life, joy and suffering are very close that almost touch.
Best Wishes to the immigrants, that are not different from our grandparents or grand-grandparents who emigrated with a cardboard suitcase in Argentina, Canada and United States of America.


Best Wishes to those of who love each-other, to those seeking a partner and to those of you who did not find one yet.


... and some Best Wishes and Cheers also to me


Pierfranco

Auguri

Auguri, senza fronzoli, a tutti i miei amici, senza video o immagini.
Auguri di Felici Feste,  ma perché limitarci a pochi giorni: Auguri per tutto il 2011,
Auguri a chi mi vuole bene ed anche a chi non me ne vuole perché tutti meritiamo un Augurio di tempi migliori, serenità e salute.
Auguri chi ha perso il lavoro, a chi lo ha trovato e a chi se lo tiene stretto con i denti.
Auguri ai nonni e alla nonne che sostengono le famiglie dei figli che lavorano a tempo pieno.
Auguri ai nostri politici, che forse non lo sono più, ma Auguri lo stesso: che trovino una illuminazione e un modo migliore di condurre questo paese magari pensando meno ai loro interessi o quello del loro leader.
Auguri alle generazioni future, ai genitori che li crescono e che cercano di dargli un'educazione ed una direzione di vita.
Auguri ai carcerati, a chi cerca di redimersi e a chi non lo sa fare, e perché le carceri non siano solo un luogo di suicidi e contenzione.
Auguri a chi ha sofferto un lutto, a chi ha creato una nuova vita; gioia e sofferenza sono distanti un sottile filo.
Auguri agli immigrati ed agli extra-comunitari, che non sono diversi dai nostri nonni o bisnonni che sono emigrati con la valigia di cartone in Argentina, Canada e Stati Uniti d'America.
Auguri a coloro che si amano, a chi cerca un compagno ed una compagna e a chi non si è mai trovato.
Ed un pò di Auguri a me, che male non mi fa

Pierfranco

Why modelling when you can draw on a white board

I came across this pretty fancy blogger that states that it's better do draw on a white boards "A "plain old whiteboard (POW)" is my favorite modeling tool". It then says that since these might useful to others they can be captured in a picture "We took the photo because we were afraid that we’d lose the valuable information that it contains". It's so valuable that it deserves a picture but not enought to be modeller in a tool.
Finally he shows that in order to clean the picture from the nasty reflection he used a painting program to manually remove the spot.
Another guy in a forum states "...but I use white boards. Keep many of them around so that they don't have to be erased".

No comment here. Let's say what will the future tell us.

Painting processes

While digging the Internet I went through a blog with a discussion about Compensations in BPMN. This is a clear description of what I consider an anti-pattern in modelling. These persons are disguising if the given example is corrent for modelling compensation in credit card processing. There are replies in the thread that propose alternative models and explain with plenty of details why a model is wrong and why another one is correct. It's mentioned for example that there is not an undo, that the logic is wrong because one entity is reached after another.
The tebate is interesting at first, except that it lacks a key concept: the model has never been exectuted actually! Essentially in the blog people argue the correctness using hipotesys but no one has ever had the idea of executing it, "let gives some input and see how it behaves". As we have done for decades with code that implements algoriths like binary seach, bubble sost, linked list, we'd execute it in order to test it, and to find  which inputs break the algorithm and then we can try to fix it and propose alternatives.
This is a nice demonstration IMO that modelling is still treated essentially like painting boxes and lines in a canvas. But hey, BPMN is a computable specification with well defined behaviours, we might be able now execute it in Intalio, JBoss, BizAgi for example like any other code. If it behaves has planned that it's correct, othervise not.
After all, a model is a code and a code is a model, we shall treat it in the same way.