Remembering ICAM and a Lost SDLC Opportunity

It was in the 70's when the Air Force developed the concept of Integrated Computer-Aided Manufacturing (ICAM). Technocrats concluded that building software to support complex manufacturing required software with some means of representing the meaning connected to software elements. Thus was born Integration DEFinition for Information Modeling (IDEF1X).

Fast forward decades of software engineering. Today most software is constructed with an ad doc relationship to domain meaning -- that is, without a semantic data model.

Image credit: Wikipedia Commons

Visualization Ideas

Concepts for book visualization

• Photocopies of early letters
• Excerpts from famouse correspondences

Title Candidates

Title / central concept ideas:

• Dear Reader: Written Communications from Cicero to Cyrano, to Telegraph to iPhone
• Communication Gap: The Chaotic, Devolving State of Written Communications
• The Cyptic Psyche: The Chaotic, Devolving State of Written Communications & What it Means for Love, Family & Intellect

Book Layout

Every chapter will have these elements:

• a representative excerpt of the communication ("use case")
• a "good example" and a "bad" example
• clear statement of the paradigm

More time on social nets than email

This per NYT post via @stevecase

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/18/technology/internet/18drill.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

Much of this is video - "cool medium" ?

Andrew Potter & discourse

Possible additional ideas from Andrew Potter:

• Topic drift as a passive indicator of discourse quality
• Self - Other - Idea continuum

Google Map Links / Generation

This snip shows how to refer to a Google map address from a web page. When Google Maps generates the URL ("link") for you, it hard-codes the current map display. Have the display zoomed to the desired level before requesting the link.

test test
Google Map