Subject: Re: SDL Demo and ITU CD Q&A

From: "John Stracke" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2001 18:50:57 -0500

>Instead it seems that formal mechansms are always sold
>as a substitute for design skill and talent, but end up consuming a lot
>of both that should have been spent on designing the nominal product,

And, in standards development, they also serve to raise the bar for anybody who wants to contribute to the standard, thereby 
protecting the privileged position of the people who know the formal 
mechanisms.

/===============================================================\
|John Stracke                   |Principal Engineer             |
[email-masked]  |Incentive Systems, Inc.        |
|http://www.incentivesystems.com|My opinions are my own.        |
|===============================================================|
|"I use emacs, which might be thought of as a thermonuclear word|
|processor." -- Neal Stephenson                                 |
\===============================================================/

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From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 08 Dec 2001 08:49:12 -0800

In a sensible use of formal mechanisms, it serves 2 purposes:

- As a mechanism for specifying with reasonable precision at least
  parts of what has been agreed upon
- As a platform for tools that can catch silly mistakes before
  they get published in permanent form

They can neither serve as a substitute for clear thinking nor as a 
substitute for clear talking.

But I think they CAN help point out where we have made decisions that lead 
to real operational problems (fin-wait-2 anyone?) before these problems 
come up to hurt us.

                     Harald

--On 7. desember 2001 18:50 -0500 John Stracke 
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> And, in standards development, they also serve to raise the bar for
> anybody who wants to contribute to the standard, thereby  protecting the
> privileged position of the people who know the formal  mechanisms.