Top-down or bottom-up?

[David Megginson]

Paul Prescod writes:


 > > More specifically, top-down can work only with very, very good models,
 > > and even I (who am known to shoot my mouth off) would not go so far as
 > > to claim that I can produce a sufficiently accurate and complete model
 > > of the Web over the next five years; in the absence of such a model,
 > > bottom-up development and the free market of ideas is the only
 > > reasonable choice, messy as it may be.
 > 
 > I don't think I can produce *the* data model that will be used over the
 > Web for the next five years. I think that I can produce *a* data model
 > that would be demonstrably better than the complete lack of such.

That's not what I mean -- creating a data model is tractable, but a
data model is of questionable value if it's not based on a fairly
accurate business model, use cases, etc.  I don't think that any of us
can reasonably draw up a reliable business model that will cover the
Web for the next five years, and even the use cases will be pretty
shakey.  Without good models, bottom-up is our best bet.


All the best,


David

-- 
David Megginson                 david at megginson.com
           http://www.megginson.com/

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