Path: csiph.com!usenet.pasdenom.info!gegeweb.org!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!mx04.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: David Lamb Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.programmer Subject: Re: Who gets interviewed to produce use cases? Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2012 09:44:30 -0400 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 32 Message-ID: References: <023d634e-8bea-421f-a598-0bb668d44d38@googlegroups.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2012 13:44:35 +0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: mx04.eternal-september.org; posting-host="c397b0271b118225329a50c7668d0388"; logging-data="2221"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1+gokdWllML6nbbq6G2+5Ie" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:14.0) Gecko/20120713 Thunderbird/14.0 In-Reply-To: <023d634e-8bea-421f-a598-0bb668d44d38@googlegroups.com> Cancel-Lock: sha1:08q2NVjCGPqIZBdf+dzJ+ANZTGk= Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.java.programmer:17350 On 07/08/2012 4:47 PM, Lew wrote: > On Tuesday, August 7, 2012 11:26:41 AM UTC-7, David Lamb wrote: >> Does anyone have data, or at least an informed opinion, on how often >> genuine users of a proposed piece of software get consulted on >> developing use cases (or some close equivalent)? I ask here because of >> the recent UML discussion and because I've seen people, especially Lew, >> mention use cases reasonably frequently. > > I mention use cases in a rather abstract sense, that is, to signify the underlying > phenomenon of a collection of circumstances and needs. You seem to use the > term in a more restricted sense of the documentation of such phenomena. Not really, which is why I said "or close equivalent." I should probably have expanded a bit to say some reasonably precise description of user requirements in a reasonably user-comprehensible form. >> anyone know which of us is closer to right? Is the answer different for >> the Java and object-oriented-development community than it is for other >> developers? > > Those questions require data. I know, which is why in the opening paragraph I asked if anyone had data and, if not, falling back on informed opinons -- which you gave me later in your response. Thanks! and thanks to everyone else who is responding -- I'm waiting to see how the conversation plays out before saying much more than I have already (except I plan to clarify what I meant whenever it becomes apparent I left out important details). In any case the data I was hoping for was on practices, not motivations -- my colleague's expression was to me a hyperbolic version of "they don't ask the actual users."