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Pictures that play: Design notations for real‐time and distributed systems
Author(s) -
Buhr R. J. A.
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
software: practice and experience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.437
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1097-024X
pISSN - 0038-0644
DOI - 10.1002/spe.4380230806
Subject(s) - notation , executable , computer science , trace (psycholinguistics) , tracing , programming language , human–computer interaction , focus (optics) , process (computing) , engineering design process , engineering , mechanical engineering , linguistics , philosophy , physics , arithmetic , mathematics , optics
‘Pictures that play’ are design diagrams that give enough visual cues to enable a person to trace causality sequences that cut across them, without referring to (or even knowing) the kind of details that would enable a tool to execute the design or to generate executable code. Playing design diagrams is particularly important while exploring alternative solutions during the early stages of designing all kinds of systems. It is done either by mentally tracing sequences across diagrams on paper or a computer screen, or physically tracing them on whiteboards with a pointer or finger during design meetings. Two complementary pictorial design notations are described and used together in an example to illustrate the concept of play and to show how to do it: timethreads , a new notation for causality sequences that cut across many components and across the system end‐to‐end, and machine charts , an older notation for architecture presented here from a new angle. These notations are specifically designed to support play during the design process, not just record the end result. The focus is on real‐time and distributed (RTD) systems, but the approach has wider applicability.