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A conversation with Bob Glushko about document engineering and business patterns
When I first
heard Bob Glushko speak at a conference I knew we were kindred
spirits. Our shared interests include information architecture, XML,
web services, and the hybrid discipline of document
engineering that he and Tim McGrath define in their
eponymously-titled new book.
In today's podcast we discuss these topics, focusing
particularly on Bob's experience -- first as an industry practitioner,
now as an academic instructor -- with the kinds of business pattern
languages exemplified by the RosettaNet and UBL (Universal Business
Language) initiatives.
In the past these ideas seemed abstract and arcane to me, and to some
extent they still do, but after reading the book and discussing it
with Bob I have a much more concrete sense of what they are and how
they apply to the real world. Towards the end of our conversation I
asked Bob what it's like to think in those terms and to design
information systems accordingly. He replied:
What I always tell people is, you're out there at the Home Depot
warehouse picking up the stuff you just bought. Close your eyes and
say, let me make the buildings go away, and the people go away, and
the trucks go away, and just think about who is exchanging information
with whom, and what does the message say, what does it mean. Forget
the physical implementation and try to focus on the abstraction that
business information is being exchanged among parties for some purpose.
That's a nice way to talk about a process that's abstract, but
solidly grounded in reality.
Update: Bob's blog is Doc or Die.
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