Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
conformance and compliance that makes it a practical tool, feeding naturally
from design to development. All these factors contribute to ODP's position
as the most effective architectural vehicle for understanding and achieving
system interoperability.
1.2
Viewpoints
1.2.1
The Idea of Viewpoints
The RM-ODP is perhaps best known for its use of viewpoints. The idea
behind them is to break down a complex specification into a set of coupled
but separate pieces. This is a very old idea, used, for instance, to simplify en-
gineering drawings (as shown in figure 1.1) and in the building plans produced
by architects.
The writers of the reference model were keenly aware of the need to serve
different stakeholders, and introduced the idea of there being a set of linked
side
plan
front
front
side
plan
FIGURE 1.1: A traditional use of viewpoints in a mechanical drawing with
first-angle orthographic projection.
