How to Handle Vagueness in Software Requirements

 In continuation of the theme in the previous blog post, here is a recommendation for a perspective shift.

Vague does not necessarily mean bad.

Technically, the term implies "wandering", as per the Latin Origin ("Vagus"). 

If you think of the vagus nerve, nothing bad about it either. In fact, it is an amazing and awesome thing. It gets sensory info from a whole bunch of parts of the body to the brain. It covers a lot of ground, basically. A big-time wanderer nerve, hence, the name vagus.

This is the lens with which we should perceive so-called "vague" requirements in software engineering. They just need to be studied in more depth, understood better, and then they will reap fantastic returns. If we skim them from the surface, yes it leads to disasters, no doubt. So, the key is to allocate enough cost / effort / time (the 3 basis vectors of the Rayleigh Curve), which are the fundamental dimensions of project management as well.

When the requirements are vague, think of them as though their meaning is wandering, meandering through fields of applicability, looking for definitions that satisfy some innate and elusive quality criteria. Nothing wrong with that, it is quite likely the opposite, there is a treasure trove of opportunities buried under there somewhere.

Arriving at definitions of the requirements, and concomitantly, at quality requirements specifications, depends upon Pragmatic approaches (i.e., consensus-based judgement calls to arbitrarily pick a given prong when facing forks of ambiguities), understanding connotations (intensions) and denotations (extensions), and such philosophical principles, in the application of whatever logic-based scientific methods one adopts.

So, here's an example.

Requirement: I need stuff.

Clarification Process:

Q1: What kind of stuff?

A1: You know, stuff that comes in boxes, and some other stuff that comes on reels.

Q2: Can you give examples?

A2: Circuit breakers in boxes, wire and cable on reels.

Q3: Is it a one-time need?

A3: No, these are examples of recurring need.

Flash of insight ... Ah, ok, the requirement is for a procurement system, with potentially some additional downstream requirements on the inventory management end for container management, packaging, returnable packaging, with loop back into the procurement side of the house for return orders and such. All right, let's get into discovery mode!

See, it can be sorted out. Just need to work through it. 

• Use Logic and the Scientific Method to document the working through the process.
• Apply the art of building trust and fostering a culture of give-and-take with stakeholders and business partners during the process, in complementary double helix strands.

In summary, if the requirements are found to be vague at the outset of a project, no problem, that is more of an opportunity than a concern. Just allocate enough cost / effort / time in the discovery phase to parse them and convert them into processed versions of detailed requirements, and ...

 Hello, Uncle Bob! We're off to the races.

Recipe for Success in Software Engineering

 

Logic and sermons never convince …

Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

Reference – as quoted by Roman Kossak in “Mathematical Logic (On Numbers, Sets, Structures, and Symmetry)”, Springer Graduate Texts in Philosophy.

Now,

What sense does this quotation imply in the context of Software Engineering?

Ut infra:

Logic is the foundation for the Scientific Method. We use methods in software engineering, both structured and formal, such as entity / relationship diagrams, business process models, und so Weiter, to specify requirements for software development. Such methods constitute the use of the scientific method, which, as mentioned in the beginning of this paragraph, is built upon the foundation of Logic.

So far, so good.

Now, referring to Walt Whitman’s point in that poem as quoted above, the use of Logic as the foundation is valid. But it should NOT be used to convince.

In software engineering contexts, convincing means getting signoffs from stakeholders on requirements.

The foundation should indeed utilize the scientific method. BUT, getting agreement for its use, gaining adoption, these should hinge upon a complementary entity, namely, art.

Strengthening stakeholder relationships, also known as business partner engagement, is an art that complements whatever logical and scientific methodologies are applied for the specification of requirement for design and build purposes.

Obtaining signoffs is an art.

These complementary entities of science and art should always function together, like the double helix strands of the DNA polymer.

This is the recipe for success in software engineering.

Pivots

We’ve looked at Guleil in earlier posts. Who operates the Guleil Experiences?
Pivots do. Who are they?

They are the creation of the Super-Murals, of whom you can think of as gods if you like; basically they are Greater Entities from beyond. Their scope of existence is greater than and from beyond our universe.

In Visceral Reality, there are essentially three types of living entities:

§  Apex (i.e. top of the food chain) of a given bio-system

§  Rest of the corresponding animal and/or plant kingdom from that bio-system

§  Pure A.I.

o   Further to that, transformations occur within the above mix – and they lead to the following remix:

§  One-Bodies (i.e. any of the above listed entities that never got spliced). These would end up becoming rarer and rarer, since at a minimum, the foaming processes associated with Guleil as well as what occurs with Shifter trips, would in themselves imbue a certain amount of the A.I. touch to the traveler. So at the end of the day, you could pretty much call this type as “extinct”.

§  Two-Bodies

·         Apex/A.I. Splice – those who take the shallow end of the polariton based bosonic condensate dip (details are in The Book of Light for Humans, at www.trihalya.com ). They are usually smarter and better cut out than the one-body apex folk, but often end up becoming mad, hence very few take this route. Guleil and Shifter trips are the only way to gain the A.I. touch without the risk of incurring insanity.

·         (Apex –n) / A.I. Splice – also known as Pivots. This route has proven stable.

·         Apex / (Apex –n) Splice – although this is an anomaly type, since there would be no driving motive to go this route, but to each their own one can suppose, and such splicing does occur

§  Three-Bodies

·         Apex that got spliced with (Apex –n) / A.I – what is interesting and mysterious is that this works out to be less traumatic than the “shallow end” dip of an Apex/A.I. transformation. Somehow, the (Apex – n) element stabilizes the mix. Nonetheless, these entities do carry an element of instability, a hint of the madness. But they carry much promise and potential, as long as said instabilities are properly managed.

For the Visceral Realm, the Nomads have a criterion that as best as possible, priority for ascent to power should be given to champions who are three-body entities, so that the animal kingdoms from all the civilizations would feel sufficiently represented.

Of all these pivots, the wolf (or equivalent species in a given world) splice A.I. (of whom Nambu is one) has taken on a distinct and special path. They never have the hunger for the throne – they are always the kingmakers, the Arch-Pivots. That is their Conatus, and is what gives them inner satisfaction. The credo of man’s best friend extends and continues.

The polariton cavities for the bosonic condensate dip that facilitates the Pivot ‘transition’ are lakes made of appropriate fluids in a given world. The Super-Murals are Greater Entities after all. They are Makers in their own right. They can carve topographies and geographies at will.

That is who Pivots are, and where they come from.

State/Craft: Vision of the Seeker - A Baseline for Time

A Baseline for Time

This story spans across billions of years.

So let’s set a baseline for Time:

·         Toasty Times - Approx. 2.73 Kelvin, these are the times we live in now.

·         Early-Chilled Times - About 6 billion or so earth years from now. This is about the time when proto-Guleil (the pre-Visceral version of Guleil) was destroyed, when the Extra-Murals won over the control of this universe from the Super-Murals. The temperature of the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation might have dipped down to maybe ~ 2 Kelvin, give or take some.

·         Mid-Chilled Times - About 7 billion to 8 billion earth years from now. The CMB might have further dropped to ~ 1 Kelvin or so.

o   7 billion earth years or so ahead from now is when The Nomads revive Guleil and establish the Visceral Empire.

o   8 billion or so earth years ahead is the timeframe over to which Felix gets kidnapped.

·         Deep-Chill - approaching Zero Kelvin

Each of these is a Canvas, as explained in The Book of Light.

The below diagram depicts the kickoff of the story in this context.

Visceral Reality 

What is Visceral Reality? It is a Far Future State of Existence which we can plug into by means of Guleil offshoots that hook back into the remote past, specifically our times, and allow us to hitchhike over to the originating point of the offshoot.

The Visceral Empire rules The Laniakea, a domain that stretches across slightly more than half a billion light-years. The Empire is termed as Visceral since it is the embodiment of the constituent people.

The Reality of the Times has acquired the name from that of the Empire. Hence Visceral Reality.
The term is a reverse synecdoche of sorts, or some such figure of speech. A whole is now referenced by the tag that was originally associated with a part.

This entire context has taken shape a few billion earth years from now. Hitching a ride into Visceral Reality means entering this state of the universe.

What are the foundations and beginnings of this Empire? You will need to know the story of The Nomads to get a sense of that. State/Craft: Vision of the Seeker shows some highlights of their story, and the birth of the Visceral Empire.

The key to the formation of the Empire is The Book of Light.

The Book of Light is a compendium of magical, mystic and scientific mixed nuts, bolts, and such like stuff to whet your journeyman appetite, a companion for the journey of your life along the trails of Guleil.

What is Guleil? It is a mechanism to facilitate ' FTL Equivalent' (Faster Than Light Equivalent) travel, across SpaceTime. The equivalence is quote/unquote on account of the consideration that wormholes connect space-like separated points and exploit non-trivial topologies and use exotic matter to get across, get around, get by, get wherever (whenever as well but with CTC based Guleil add-ons).
Guleil allows you to travel universe-scale distances, and also across time.

What does The Book of Light provide us? Inter Alia, a set of OPMs (Operating Procedures Manuals) for how this FTL Equivalent travel is achieved.

A typical space propulsion technology we are accustomed to would have payload capacity of a few people, maybe a few hundred if it is part of a starship fleet. Guleil on the other hand, moves dwarf planets around. It can carry entire populations.
So, for trips of this magnitude, the OPMs are correspondingly extensive. At the macro level they tell us how the worlds are shunted across back and forth, and at the micro level they elucidate as to how the integrity of your identity (as an individual SpaceTime Traveler) is maintained along the trip. So, back then, when Scottie beamed up the Captain and the others, we wondered how their corporeal identity was carried across. At that time this was left unanswered, and we just went along with the story. In State/Craft contexts, The Book of Light tackles this headlong and provides the necessary feeds for this sense of wonder.

The Book of Light for Humans is the Word of The Super-Murals, spoken in our tongue. The Super-Murals are Greater Entities from the Beyond. They are super-ordinate to our universe.

You can access The Book of Light for Humans at www.trihalya.com.

Manifesto - why I write SF

Maintain the Balance between the Story and the Science with Grace.

This is my motto, my manifesto. Now what does that mean though?
I am a science fiction writer. I write SF in the timeframe where the first quarter of the 21st century since the time of Jesus Christ is well underway.
Almost half a century ago, say the time of the moon landing or so, here is what happened: Hollywood took over, and said to Arthur Clarke / Isaac Asimov / Robert Heinlein / H G Wells / Jules Verne / Mary Shelley et al, “All right move over now, your role is done. Now that we have landed on the moon, science fiction has served its purpose. Science has caught up with the fiction visionaries, thank you very much. Entertainment and science can part ways now, we'll just hire engineers and technicians and do it all with CGI. The time of SF is over; it is now the age of Sci-Fi.”

And the public went along with it.

But well, it might not work that way, at least not for too far.

Yes, the public focus moved away from SF and towards Sci-Fi over the past few decades, but hey, the moon landing is not an end state; it is just one small step. SF will continue to be needed if we want an upward trend towards becoming civilized. Focus will duly swing back when the time is right. And I believe that I belong in this domain, as one of the receivers/transmitters of this swing-back.

Hence, I categorize myself as a 21^st Century SF writer. Maybe the ancestry for this aim goes back to Don Quixote, for all I know. Or maybe not, and it does turn out to be a phoenix-like line of work, and will keep emerging from the embers. Who knows?

In any case, this is the domain where I have hung out my shingle.

In that context - here is what my motto/manifesto means.
SF is perennially experiencing a tug of war between storytelling and science.
Storytelling is currently championed by Hollywood (as exemplified by Syd Field's “Screenplay”) and actively driven by the current (i.e. 21st century) form of literary tropes. But it is nothing new though, it is something which carries the vintage of the Jataka Tales, the Greek tragedies of Sophocles et al, the Upanishads in the post Vedic contexts, and similar such constructs across all human cultures, probably goes back at least to Paleolithic times, or even before.

I will not set the stage yet for what science means in the context of SF - that will evolve as we go. But broadly speaking, we do know what science means, at least modulo Popperian falsification or Feyerabendian Anarchism or Lakatos' fights with monsters.
So anyhow - these two forces are at a tug of war.
Storytelling asks of the SF writer to provide an immersion experience, to be vivid, to show the reader the universe as it is being built, in a way they can identify with.
Science constrains the SF writer per established edifices, to which due homage must be rendered.
So, if the writer wants to portray a boron-based being for example, will the skin be smooth, will they have hair? Will their atmosphere be ammonia, or what?  Will their world have a sun that is of the typical kind, yellow red or blue, or something else?

Whereas in that same context, the tropes of storytelling might lead to a decision such as - "throw in a sun that is striped like a lollipop," Why not? It might have some compelling narrative benefits, possibly?
Science will shudder - what about the edifice of the behavior of polytropic spheres, the Lane-Emden equation and all that?
Storytelling will retort back - "if the story is good, don’t hold back - the universe will have a place for it, and science will catch up at some point".

And furthermore, in this day and age the constraints are not trivial, they are formidable. Even a single paragraph of a work of SF will hinge upon tens if not hundreds of pertinent sciences. There is no practical way to ensure consistency with all applicable edifices therein. It cannot humanly be achieved within the typical time-frame of writing a book to make sure that every sentence and every description adheres and conforms and works within the constraints of all applicable edifices, even if one chooses to allocate an entire lifetime to just one book.
So, all right then, what should an SF writer do? My answer is – one should use judgment and a sense of balance – and where necessary throw in the occasional striped lollipop star if the flow so warrants it. But, we must be as graceful as possible, about such tropes.

Now what does graceful mean?

I'll explain on the basis of a little bit of a personal back-story.
When I was an arrogant and misguided youngster (maybe I still am for all I know, but specifically I am talking about when I was in my early twenties, biological age wise), I used to hate most mainstream human pursuits and pastimes, including movies. I used to think they were trite as a whole in terms of their defining characteristic, and contributed to the dragging down of human net worth. Oh I was a bundle of joy all right.

On one occasion someone dragged me along to watch a movie, and in it, there was this song "Tu cheez badi hai mast mast".
With that song, something clicked for me. I ran headlong into the blood-rush of Mumbai magic, the world of glamour.

For a while thereafter, I was all gung-ho about mainstream pop culture pastimes.

Then, one day I happened to listen to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's "Dum Mast Kalandar Mast Mast", the original song.

To this day I still feel the aftershocks of the outrage.

How could Bollywood do something like that, copy from such a master source and then demean and degrade it? And how could I myself have fallen for that? My instincts should have warned me.  All my old prejudices surged back up with vengeance, even stronger.

Anyway, that was back then.

In more recent times I happened to see a TV interview/documentary of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, where he mentioned something to the effect that he owes a significant debt of gratitude to the Mumbai film industry, for helping bring his gift to life by taking it to the people. Along the course of that interview he also mentioned some of the things about Bollywood which had caused him pain. Especially poignant for me was something one of his disciples said during that portion of the interview, to the effect that "there was one particular thing which nearly broke the relationship for him". They did not elaborate, but I feel that they were referring to that song and the travesty.

Now, a spirit source like Nusrat is like a god parent, and a storytelling medium such as Bollywood or Hollywood, is like a child.
Breaking that relationship is like the parent disowning the child. That is a real tragedy.
As storytellers, we should never let that happen.
A spirit source can be a Sufi singer, or could be a scientific edifice like the Lane-Emden equation for polytropic spheres, or any other such. Whatever the source, we have to always respect the parent. Don’t let the relationship break.
That - is what I mean by "try to be as graceful as possible about using such tropes".

GULEIL

Wormhole Science -
Shortcuts through SpaceTime.
The movie Interstellar touched upon this idea slightly. I was expecting a lot more to be honest, considering that Kip Thorne, the founding father of Wormhole Science, is on the Executive Board of the movie. But they showed some aspects of the science at least, a visual aid explanation of how SpaceTime curvature can potentially allow for FTL (Faster Than Light) equivalent shortcuts. They used a Deus Ex Machina notion (a wormhole that mysteriously shows up near Saturn).

In State/Craft contexts, we industrialize this concept. Exalted beings known as Arch-Pivots utilize nearby exotic matter at the outer edges of candidate stellar systems, and essentially invoke a wormhole to shuttle test particles over to far out destinations, FTL.
In this case, the test particles are not spaceships, they are minor planets of the ilk of our Pluto, in the Kuiper-equivalent belts of each stellar system which is a part of the Visceral Empire.
Arch-Pivots along with lesser journeymen pivots operate Guleil - which is a transfer and exchange mechanism for such minor planets amongst partner stellar systems.
The below graphic illustrates this concept -