SDL-News: Complete systems


Subject: SDL-News: Complete systems
From: William H. Skelton (W.Skelton#SOLINET.com)
Date: Wed Dec 17 2003 - 21:28:19 GMT


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-----From "William H. Skelton" <W.Skelton#SOLINET.com> to sdlnews -----

Dear Andreas (and SDL News),

Thanks for your feedback regarding gates on the environment of a system;
comments below...

For other people interested in this subject, please register at
www.SDL-Task-Force.org.

William

>Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 16:25:29 +0100
>From: Andreas Prinz <Andreas.Prinz#hia.no>
>Subject: Re: [SDLTF-Members] Communication Process
>
>Dear William,
>>Logical conclusion: If a system is to be complete, it cannot have any
>>gates on its environment.
>
>In fact, this was just the question. The systems that we describe are by
>nature incomplete, in that they communicate with other systems.
>If this is the case, then it does not make sense to restrict ourselves to
>complete systems.

So do they have to communicate through an undefined mechanism outside of
the system?

This is a case of either you have an undefined mechanism outside a system
or you have an undefined mechanism somewhere in a process, for example to
read to/write from an IP socket.

For the task force definition the beauty of the complete system is it
allows us to make a difference between a system, which is complete,
self-contained and executable, and a block, which is a sub-system to be
used somewhere else, and not executable by itself.

This definition has so much beauty I think we should try to find reasons
for it, rather than against it, especially as when we look at the reasons
against, it turns out they can be handled in a clean way inside a process
anyway.

>>Logical consequence: If a system needs to communicate with another system
>>it can use a block/process designed for that purpose, like an IP stack.
>
>Of course, you can always hide interfaces using processes with appropriate
>underlying functionality. However: why should we hide interfaces? I think
>it is most important to clearly show interfaces!

I fully agree and in fact they are not hidden at all!

We have exactly the same gate/interface specifications to a process as you
can on the environment of a system.

>Best regards,
> Andreas
>
>--
>Prof. Andreas Prinz
>Agder University College
>Open Systems Development Group
>Tel: +47 3725 3220
>mailto: Andreas.Prinz#HIA.no
>

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William H. Skelton, Engineering Dept.
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