Is EA a tool or a document?

[sargasso]

I have said this before and no doubt before the sun goes down here on Jupiter, I'll say it again.

"EA is a tool, its not reality, nor is it in itself a representation of reality.  It is merely a whiteboard upon which you can scribble, discuss, argue and hopefully come up with a model that adequately describes a solution to a problem."

This is, to me, has always has been its strength. Now there have been many posts (over the last 24 months) that seem to me to be driving EA towards the attitude that an EA model is the "solution" or the "answer" or the "document".  In other words it should be just like  M$ Visio  I just can't lie down and accept this.  

There are many ways to take EA "diagrams" or "models" and their ramifications from the scratchpad to a specifcation "document" and ultimately to a benficial implementation.   Unfortunately, these ways are not always obvious (neither to the neophyte nor the adept!).  So, for the sake of it only, I am going to pose these questions to you all.

1) How do you use EA, as a modelling tool or as a model documenter?

3) What is more important, given your first answer, "presentation" or "correctness"?

Finally.    3) Is consistency an issue? (apart from within the  forum. (Oh, OK I'll withdraw that one.))

bruce


27Feb Edit: I just realized that there was a missing word in my original query that may have made this entirely sensincle.

[thomaskilian]

Of course EA is not a document, but a documentation tool. Primarily I use it for documentation purpose. Using EA for modelling is rather rare as most project simply starve after the documentation phase.

[Oliver F.]

Of course EA is not a document, but a documentation tool. Primarily I use it for documentation purpose. Using EA for modelling is rather rare as most project simply starve after the documentation phase.

Not, if a project is intended to improve a product
EA is for me a modelling as well as a documentation tool because we have a very complex product (constantly evolving).

Such a complexity must be handeld in the architectural stage at the system architecture level, so EA is used to define (model) all technical requirements deriving from customer/product requirements engeneering. The use of off-shore development (in 2 continents) even requires a very detailed definition work to avoid from misunderstandings (did someone say "culture" ?).
Then there is the requirements for testing and deployment which has to be defined and last but not least: There must be a comprehensive documentation available about the product for the maintenance folks and for later consideration when product features are offered and/or improved.
Not to speak about new colleagues entering the game for which the learning curve has to be kept not that steep- currently we expect at least 6-12 months for a new staff member before he is ready for productive work, EA should help to lower this.

Estimates have to be tracked, people organised and projects planned.

So the question about tool or documentation facility is, at least for me, rather clear: Both.

Oliver

[salayande]

Dear all,

EA is a thinking (conceptual modelling), a design, implementation and maintenance tool. I start from an architectural framework to document the "As-Is" architecture to create the "To-Be" architecture. I then populate the architecture, project by project.

regards

Segun

[Jan ´Bary´ Glas]

The way I use it, is quite a common in my neibourhood.
We model our projects and work with EA repository on them and we are continuously generating versions of documentation (That's a TOOL). When a phase/release 2 comes we take the repository as a documentation of current state (That means a DOCUMENTATION). And then a tool again...

[Martin Terreni]

I think (as others posted here) that it is both.
We model in EA and keep our minds mainly on correctnes and completness rather then readability. It is also the spesification of the system, and there fore we keep it updated all the time. Actualy the developer must mark our reuiqrements\deisgns as rejected if they can't be developped as desingd (so we know the desing needs to be changed)- for that it is a modeling tool.
The developers\testers are no handed documents but they have access to the EA DB - for that it is documentation tool (and document)
We did though find that for business oriented users it is much harder to "read"the EA, there for we decided to generate summarazing documents for them, right now we have just began working on it. This spesific problem I found in many places - the documentation required for the development is different then the required for the users to aprove the design and though I would love, some times, to sign the customer on each table - it seems it is not possible

[hamgva]

We strictly consider it to be a tool.  Just like MS Word or Oracle.  The model for EA is like the Document for Word of the actual database within Oracle.  Diagrams are views into the data.  (like queries in Oracle).  

[Paolo F Cantoni]

I notice no one has asked: "What does EA think it is?"

The answer from the web site is:

Enterprise Architect is a comprehensive UML analysis and design tool, covering software development from requirements gathering, through to the analysis stages, design models, testing and maintenance.

So, I suggest that is the criteria we should judge it against...

Paolo

[Paolo F Cantoni]

We use it as a tool.  It's job is to create a consistent repository of whatever we need to model, from which we can create consistent outputs that represent the information in the repository.

Model:

An abstraction (simplification) of one or more aspects of the
real world; whose characteristics and behaviour sufficiently
mimic reality for the purposes of making accurate predictions on
the characteristics and behaviours of reality within the domain
of the model.

            (After Bujor/Cantoni)

(So as sargasso (bruce) says, it isn't reality, but sufficiently like it to be useful...  To remind me of this, I have a copy of the "Modeller's Painting" ("Ceci n'est pas une pipe." by Magritte) above my desk...)

Paolo
(the weird one)

[sargasso]

Thanks folks,  at least I got the gist that we (all the responders) are using it in the same way.  Although...

<seed> <seed> <seed>
I would really like to see comment from a/any/all Sparxians.

bruce

p.s. I (me and my dictionary) [am/are] only up to to the second sentence of this : http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3814/is_200301/ai_n9213172

[«Midnight»]

Regarding the p.s. bruce,

Give up there. For some reason writers and readers are rarely found in the same place. There's a proofing error just after where you are, and the meaning could go any of several ways.

I usually abandon an article such as that one when the writers cannot get though the first paragraph without error. It's not that I doubt they understand, just that I don't think they can tell me what they're saying.

[Oliver F.]

Regarding the p.s. bruce,

Give up there. For some reason writers and readers are rarely found in the same place. There's a proofing error just after where you are, and the meaning could go any of several ways.

*Phew* /me washing away the sweat from his forehead.
I thought my inability not to understand that one resulted from not being a native english speaker/reader.

Now I get the feeling it results from not being of stereotype <<native psycho-egghead>>.

That builds me up. Back to work then.

Oliver

[«Midnight»]

...
*Phew* /me washing away the sweat from his forehead.
I thought my inability not to understand that one resulted from not being a native english speaker/reader.

Now I get the feeling it results from not being of stereotype <<native psycho-egghead>>.

That builds me up. Back to work then.

Oliver

There we go, another problem solved. Just like that...

[thomas.kilian]

p.s. I (me and my dictionary) [am/are] only up to to the second sentence of this : http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3814/is_200301/ai_n9213172

Perhaps you should simply consult Wikipedia concerning EPISTEMOLOGY.  Had I only time for philosophy this would be very interesting.

P.S. Is (MS) Word a tool, a document or a bucket of randomly distributed bits?