Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 8
Conformance | Does It Do the
Right Thing?
Nigel had paused at Trudy's cubicle to say hello, and had got more than he
bargained for. Her desk was covered with pieces from printed documentation,
and there were about a dozen windows open on her screens. They were all
covered with pieces of highlighting and notes, and the whiteboard was a tangle
of circled references linked by arrows. One particular looped set of arrows was
traced in red marker.
\It's no good," she said, \they just don't say what the rules are." \What's
the problem?" \They claim to be market leaders for CRM systems, but they
don't make it clear what the package really needs. It's just like that trans-
action abort problem last year, where we found that all the messages had to
be mapped to full SOAP. The obvious REST equivalent just didn't work, but
there was no warning in the installation guide."
Nigel ran his fingers through his hair. Indeed he did remember. It had
delayed an important upgrade and Marcus had not been best pleased. \But
these aren't transactional components you are looking at here." He waved
towards the whiteboard. \No, this is a dierent problem, Nigel, to do with
registering interests. I just want to know whether this operation has to be
called by a descendent of one of the package's workows, or whether it can
be called by anyone. It all depends on the definition of parent activity and
propagating action here, but the definitions are circular, as you can see. But
the real problem is that this other step in the circle can't be checked unless
we know what supporting mechanisms qualify | the same problem again,
really | and their documentation just does not say." Her voice had a slightly
desperate edge to it as she hammered each word out.
\It sounds to me," he said, \as if they don't have a clear conformance
model for their product, which in turn means that the consortium writing
the so-called standard they claim to be following didn't know they should be
insisting on one." He thought for a minute. \Look, all you can do at this stage
is ask their support line what it does, and be sure the lawyers put the answer
into the Memorandum of Understanding so that we get some insurance. But
it's a classic case of I wouldn't have started from here. Come on, I'll get you
a coee."
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