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This appears to be an idealistic proposal that is presented as if it is an accepted standard. It talks about Expert System Architecture Diagrams (ESADs) as if
by jawns 5y ago
This appears to be an idealistic proposal that is presented as if it is an accepted standard.
It talks about Expert System Architecture Diagrams (ESADs) as if they are an existing thing. I googled that term, however, and guess what? The only place "Expert System Architecture Diagrams" is found is in this blog post or references to it.
Furthermore, it quotes a "prime directive" of ESADs, "When creating expert system architecture diagrams, always strive to truly inform your viewer rather than merely make an impression," but I can't find a source for that quote anywhere, except as a paraphrase of a 2020 post on the same blog.
A lot of the idealism is accompanied by hubris. The post turns up its nose at whiteboard diagrams hastily put together by filthy casuals using their actual hands. And it implies that unless you're constructing your system diagrams in YAML, they don't qualify as expert-level.
If you're really interested in creating useful diagrams for system architecture, there is a host of material out there that is more established and authoritative. Information design is the relevant broader discipline, but there are many sub-disciplines that pertain specifically to the visual representation of the design of software systems.
- Veuxdo 5y ago"Casual" whiteboard-style diagrams are of course fine in many (really most) situations. My intent was not to look down on them or anything. This is an appeal to think about what going beyond "casual" diagrams and towards documentary diagrams looks like and requires.
- DonaldFisk 5y agoIt's nothing to do with expert systems. Whoever wrote it decided to reuse an well-established existing term for their own purposes. The title ran a bell in my head, though. In the mid 1980s, to demonstrate Personal Consultant Plus, a commercial EMYCIN clone developed by Texas Instruments, to potential customers, I developed an expert system with it called CAFES - short for Choosing Architectures for Expert Systems. This was based on a technical report of the same name by Paul Kline and Steven Dolins. There's a citation on the web https://apps.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA163343 https://apps.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA163343 but unfortunately it isn't available in PDF.
- tempodox 5y agoI suspect the reading is intended to be “expert (system diagrams)”, not “(expert system) diagrams”, but I felt the same confusion as you when I saw the title.