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> doing a walkthrough of the domain Any advice on how to do this without a domain expert to hand?

travisjungroth 6y ago
Somehow the domain has to get into the head of the person doing the modeling. If you're already a domain expert, then it's already there. If you have one next to you, this can happen through conversation. If you don't have an expert with you, you have to load it into your head yourself. Books, videos, and watching people work are all good. You could also learn to do the thing yourself, if that's possible.
- gavinray 6y ago
  This, pretty much. If you don't have one person with a clear understanding of the backing domain/model of the problem, you're going to be in for a lot of hurt. The person doesn't have to be technical, as long as they understand the business area then you just sit with them and ask them to describe things, while you translate that in your head/on paper to data models. Almost nothing else about an application matters besides your data models. The UI and other niceties are just a (very replaceable) skin around CRUD-And-CRUD-Accessories on data models. If you screw those up, you have a nice looking, useless theme. Which is pretty ironic given how much disproportionate value non-technical businesspeople place on the UI of things because they can see it/interact with it. (Not that the UI isn't massively important, but you can still interact with an API minus a frontend. The opposite scenario gives you nice-looking pictures.)
  - travisjungroth 6y ago
    You can also be in a lot of hurt even if you have that person. I've seen a domain expert brought onto teams three times, and they were never of any real help. Those products have either struggled or died btw, so I think it says more about the team than the experts.
jimbokun 6y ago
If you don't have a domain expert, you should stop everything until you either get one or become one.

Somehow the domain has to get into the head of the person doing the modeling. If you're already a domain expert, then it's already there. If you have one next to you, this can happen through conversation. If you don't have an expert with you, you have to load it into your head yourself. Books, videos, and watching people work are all good. You could also learn to do the thing yourself, if that's possible.

gavinray 6y ago
This, pretty much. If you don't have one person with a clear understanding of the backing domain/model of the problem, you're going to be in for a lot of hurt. The person doesn't have to be technical, as long as they understand the business area then you just sit with them and ask them to describe things, while you translate that in your head/on paper to data models. Almost nothing else about an application matters besides your data models. The UI and other niceties are just a (very replaceable) skin around CRUD-And-CRUD-Accessories on data models. If you screw those up, you have a nice looking, useless theme. Which is pretty ironic given how much disproportionate value non-technical businesspeople place on the UI of things because they can see it/interact with it. (Not that the UI isn't massively important, but you can still interact with an API minus a frontend. The opposite scenario gives you nice-looking pictures.)
- travisjungroth 6y ago
  You can also be in a lot of hurt even if you have that person. I've seen a domain expert brought onto teams three times, and they were never of any real help. Those products have either struggled or died btw, so I think it says more about the team than the experts.

jimbokun 6y ago

If you don't have a domain expert, you should stop everything until you either get one or become one.