From: Ian F Alexander (iany@easynet.co.uk)
Date: Mon Mar 31 2003 - 19:16:03 EST
Don,
I have replied separately to Keith K. so I won't repeat what I said there in favour of properly-atomised use cases.
However there is also a different place for simple narrative stories, not atomised or structured in any way beyond the essential logic of the tale. Stories raise issues, identify weaknesses and exceptions, give hints for test cases, and many other engineering purposes. However I certainly agree with you that simple stories are not in themselves good places to hold formal requirements directly -- though requirements can and often should trace or refer to stories as justification and context. (Stories may be useful in agile approaches but that is entirely another matter and not what I am referring to.)
Ian
> At 18:27 23/03/03 +0000, Ian Alexander wrote:
>
> -----<snip>-----
> >if a story states all the required input conditions for a
> >particular piece of behaviour, and all the required
output
> >conditions, and some temporal orderings that are for the
> >most part helpful, but occasionally need to be pruned out
or
> >marked as optional, couldn't one say that the story was
> >rather a convenient way of stating the requirements?
> -----<end>-----
>
> Convenient for what purposes?
>
> For example, does the story provide traceability for each
condition, so it
> may be individually referred to, queried as to
meaning/correctness, traced
> back to a need or goal, traced forward to a design
feature, ...? That
> would be convenient for verification, and also for
costing.
>
> Or again, does the story clearly identify its context
within the business,
> the business imperatives it derives from, and its
relationship to other
> stories? That would be convenient for understanding --
and for
> verification once more.
>
> Or again, does the story clearly separate the invariants
from the
> accidentals of their representational context (such as
sequence), so the
> underlying rules don't have to be rediscovered and
re-stated for each new
> product that embodies them? That would be convenient for
re-use.
>
> I could probably think up more, but it's been a long day
... (and perhaps
> I'm feeling jaded).
>
> Regards,
>
> -- Don
> ______________________________
> Don Mills
> Senior Consultant
> Software Education Associates Ltd
> Wellington,
> New Zealand.
> ______________________________
>
>
>
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