This is the fourth in a series of posts meant to record and disseminate the author’s thoughts on how a human personality may be kept alive after death through artificial intelligence.
Need Statement
A system fulfills a need, and a need is expressed in a statement. The needs statement consists of two parts: the objective statement and the desired effects. The objective statement is a single sentence which expresses the goal of the system. The desired effects are those attributes which the system will possess when the objective has been fulfilled.
Architecting Process Types
Architecting processes can eb categorized in two ways: on-demand and routine. On-demand processes are more difficult to create and implement, and they require systems to be developed on an “as-needed” basis. Routine systems can eb developed once and generalized for many cases.
Architecting is often best organized using a stepwise process. One layer is built, and another follows. This requires each subsequent layer to be connected to the one which preceded it. This helps one ensure that the system is connected and that rogue pieces do not interfere with its function.
An architecture, once developed, should be decomposed into constituent systems in order to understand how each section interacts with the other. Interfaces should be installed between these subsystems to ease their communication.
Good architecting processes alow for recursion,a dn additional layers strengthen those beneath them.
Architecting Tradeoffs
The architecting process should be thought of as a balancing effort between the client’s needs and the builder’s capabilities. The two are weighed against one another in order to create a system which accommodates both.
The four attributes which we use to evaluate an architecture are its: performance, production schedule, risk, and cost.
Scoping Systems
Architecting is a mixture of rational and heuristic engineering methods. Methods of other types are of minor importance.
Architecting uses models, and these models are tweaked using scoping, aggregation, partitioning, integration, and certification. Most guidelines for carrying out the architecting process are heuristic, and rational methods are few and far between.
If you want to design a system, then you’ll have to feel your way through it.
As you design a system, you will need to periodically scope it. This means that you frequently expand and contract different sections so that they continuously point to the system’s objective and not toward something else.
Form in Architecture
Form is the physical or informational structure of a system which has been realized. A system with form has the ability to maintain a stable functioning for a period of time. All systems must possess a form in order to be useful, so all systems must contain some ability to sustain themselves. the form of a system contains its entities and the relationships between them.
Question for Understanding Form
If you want to understand a system, then you will need to be able to answer the following questions:
What is the system?
What are the principal elements?
What is the formal structure?
What are the accompanying systems?
What are the system’s boundaries?
What are the system’s interfaces?
In what context is the system used?
A system’s design process can often begin well by answering these questions.
