Wednesday, June 02, 2004

The roots of language don't just diverge-- they converge This "language tree" is a great example of the "tyranny of the dominant decomposition" because it shows only how languages "split" or speciate. It does not show how various languages come together or converge. See for example English, which is composed of many languages: West Germanic, Latin, French, and a little bit of everything else, including Asian languages. The "tree image" that does capture this complexity of roots converging and branches branching is the Celtic Tree of Life (below in my blog). 10:47:39 AM    comment []  trackback []

MDO == Aspect Oriented? I saw this "Vision Statement" on the web site of an MIT professor of engineering, Olivier L. de Weck: The success of Engineering Systems is mainly determined during conceptual design, where quantitative methods are immature. Some high capital investment systems (such as new automobiles, aircraft or satellites) fail economically or technologically due to an inadequate understanding of their underlying architecture. Also, it is observed that many engineering systems are not utilized according to their original intent or specification. One hypothesis is that the likelihood of system success and longevity can be increased by extending quantitative methods, such as multiobjective optimization, to the conceptual phase of system design. The vision of Prof. de Weck’s research program is to build a rigorous methodological bridge between System Architecture and Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO), allowing systems to satisfy multiple criteria, while exhibiting desirable lifetime properties. Of particular interest are the challenges posed by families of systems/products that are built from a common platform. Sounds like engineering systems and IT systems have some of the same basic needs: more mature (quantitative) design methodologies, flexible use beyond original intent, multidisciplinary designs. MDO seems focused on the same concerns as aspect-oriented design in IT systems. 5:27:20 AM    comment []  trackback []