- From: Sean B. Palmer <sean@mysterylights.com>
- Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 18:34:45 -0000
- To: <www-archive@w3.org>
Recipie:- * GET http://infomesh.net/2001/enquire/manual/ * Excerpt page 2 * s/ENQUIRE/RDF/ Result:- [[[ 3. Modular Structure in general: Circles and Arrows The assumption is made that the system to be described can be broken up into "modules". It is generally accepted that this is a necessity for any modifyable or maintainable system involving computers. No assumptions are made about how the breaking up is done -- RDF imposes no constraints on the high level design. A similar way of describing a structure is to draw, on a piece of paper, circles with arrows in between. The circles ("modules") could be programs or pieces of hardware, for instance, and the arrows could mean "passes data to", "is composed of", or "is started by". This method, with a variety of different shaped boxes, and different coloured arrows, is useful, clear, and commonly used. The RDF system allows a more complicated system to be described than would fit on a piece of paper. It than allows an interactive user to explore the system in search of the information he requires, seeing only the parts which are of interest. RDF divides both the modules (circles) and relationships (arrows) into broad categories. This makes it easier to analyse the structure you end up with. For instance the realtionships "is part of" and "includes" show the division of a module into smaller modules. Also, when altering one part of the system, it is useful to know by which other parts it is used. These are generalised reletionships, just as Document, Program, Machine are generalised types of module. The modules may be all sorts of things. They are referred to below as "nodes", because of the role they take in the network of interrelationships within the system. ]]] Cheers, -- Kindest Regards, Sean B. Palmer @prefix : <http://purl.org/net/swn#> . :Sean :homepage <http://purl.org/net/sbp/> .
Received on Wednesday, 2 January 2002 13:34:57 UTC