From csus.edu!sacsa3.mp.usbr.gov!borcore.usbr.gov!csn!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!usc!rand.org!hermix!hermix.markv.com!dwig Fri Nov 18 07:40:21 1994 Newsgroups: comp.object,comp.software-eng Path: csus.edu!sacsa3.mp.usbr.gov!borcore.usbr.gov!csn!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!usc!rand.org!hermix!hermix.markv.com!dwig From: dwig@hermix.markv.com (Don Dwiggins) Subject: Announcing: a forum for users of Analysis/Design CASE tools Reply-To: Don Dwiggins Organization: Mark V Systems Limited, Encino, Ca. Date: Mon, 14 Nov 1994 22:19:51 GMT Message-ID: Sender: dwig@markv.com (Don Dwiggins) Lines: 71 Xref: csus.edu comp.object:21216 comp.software-eng:23960 Background: One of the most difficult things about developing software products (as opposed to contract software) is trying to make them useful (and usable) by broad segments of users, with varying needs and motivations. Frequently, the principal feedback a vendor gets is in the form of personal opinions of buyers who won't actually be using the tool themselves, checklists of "hot features" published in periodicals, and contract requirements for large quantity purchases. There's little feedback available from those attempting to use the tool daily to accomplish what they need to get done. For their part, users often feel at a loss as to how to communicate their problems, needs, ideas, and wishes back to the vendors with any chance of making a difference. This forum has two major purposes: to provide a medium for users of analysis/design CASE tools to communicate back to the vendors (not just one vendor, via a "user's group" list), and to enable them to share experiences, problems, recommendations (for or against), resources, tricks, tips, etc. The intent is for the entire community to benefit. For this reason, Mark V Systems is hosting this mailing list, but will not attempt to control its content in any way. We wish to avoid even the appearance of bias in administering the list (although, of course, our own postings will no doubt reflect a certain point of view!). To get the ball rolling, here's a list of questions, some of which might provoke you to respond. It's not intended as a survey, but feel free to respond to it as one if you'd like. If enough people do, we'll tally the results and publish a profile. - What's your biggest complaint about analysis/design tools? - How many tools have you worked with? - How many tools (of all types) do you use for your analysis/design tasks? How do you make them work together? How would you like them to? - What percent of the data in your designs is in the form of diagrams? Textual documents? Databases? Others? How do you coordinate and correlate the different forms of information? - Which methods have you used on development projects? How much have you used them (work-days, number of pages of output, or whatever other measure seems appropriate)? - What's the most important characteristic of your favorite tool that distinguishes it from others? Same question for methods. List more than one if appropriate. What characteristic(s) would make it significantly more useful or easy to use? - Do you use the tool(s) mostly in a team setting, or alone? If in a team setting, how do you manage coordination and cooperation? What are your major unmet needs in this area? - How does the use of the tool fit into the overall process of development? How do you manage the coordination with other tasks and tools? - What topics or issues would you most like to see discussed on this list? From what sources, if any, do you currently get this sort of information? Logistics: to subscribe to the list, send a message to a-d-tools-list-request@markv.com with "subscribe" in the Subject line (the body is ignored and may contain anything or be empty). To unsubscribe, send a message with the Subject "unsubscribe". Currently, the list processor only processes one other command: "help", which gets a message about the list and using the list processor (although "add" and "remove" are understood as aliases for "subscribe" and "unsubscribe"). A note about "subscribe": if your mailer-constructed reply address doesn't work, you can supply the address as an argument to subscribe, e.g., "Subject: subscribe me@myplace.here".