Re: A thought about requirements

On May 29, 2006, at 3:18 AM, Francis McCabe wrote:

> If your attitude is really representative then I will have few  
> alternatives.

Well, I guess we differ in whose attitude needs adjustment. I think,  
throughtout the groups existence, I've been very clear about my  
organization's interests, but also tried to be open to other  
organizations needs. Compromise and consensus. But I don't see why I  
have to chuck my interests. They aren't going to go away. If you feel  
that PR interests are being neglected, then, by all means, stick up  
for them. I've no objection to *that*. But I do have an objection to  
you defining what my orgs needs and interests are, and what counts as  
success for us. You'd do better to *discern* them and try to work as  
fruitfully as you can with and around them. *Mutual* respect is the  
way forward, not steamrolling.

> Groups are self-selecting in that way.

Again, I am here to represent my organizations interests, not yours.  
It would be nice if there were useful common ground and I mean to  
seek it. But we pay dues too, y'know. And I don't feel that you are  
offering any common ground by pronoucing that only PR matter. If they  
matter, let group members who have an interest in them speak up,  
bring proposals. Oh wait, they do! Good for them.

> But, several members of the group are in fact motivated by other  
> than academic politics.

Oh piffle and tish. Almost the cheapest and lamest of shots.  Why not  
go whole hog and say, "In the *real* world..."

That I am an academic doesn't mean that I am *only* an academic, or  
that my organizations are motivated primarily by some objectionable  
sense of academic politics. If I represented a Prolog vendor I  
warrant that production rules would not be my primary interest. I  
fail to see why this is controversial or objectionable, nor why it is  
occasion for being snotted at.

I build systems that have substantial and interested user bases. I'd  
like to meet their needs. They happen not to include business rules  
of a production sort. How does it help to denigrate them and me? Or,  
more important, to dismiss them? If we *can't* feasibly deal with  
everyone, then yes, someone will be shafted. So? Maybe it's me, maybe  
it's PRs, maybe it's something else.

> I was hoping to spur them somewhat.

Spur away. Great idea. I've no problem with such spurage. Bully  
pulpit away. If the group moves too far in one direction, I imagine  
my orgs will go elsewhere. If it moves too far in another, I imagine  
yours will. This is all normal and, in fact, proper. If we manage to  
find a good middle ground, neither will. If we find only a bad middle  
ground and stay there, perhaps both will :)

But let me go back to the main point: For my organizations, it  
matters not a whit if PRs control 95% of the market. (Note again,  
this doesn't have to be because of academia. A rules startup that  
wanted to break into the business rules market using a different  
paradigm would be in the same place.) (Oh, and how big is that market  
as it stands? What if I care about growing a new market where the  
ground is a bit more level.) Successful PR exchange is not the  
measure of success or relevance for us. We don't *object* to PR  
exchange, but that's a different matter. Now pretty clearly, not  
doing PRs will doom the RIF to irrelevance to the PR rules vendors.  
But that's a rather different and scoped claim.

Cheers,
Bijan.

Received on Monday, 29 May 2006 02:45:43 UTC