Pieter Wisse
These notes are excerpts, taken from my email correspondence during the years 2002 to 2005.
12.1
As a method for information modeling, metapattern secures the conceptual
foundation for a new generation of practical information technology products
and services. KnitbITs is the platform for development, deployment and
operations.
12.2
Integrating information processing is not simple. Then, logical atomism at
the traditional object level is not unambiguous enough. Examples abound of
integration projects where I find it easy to predict massive failure, precisely
because conceptual complexity remains unrecognized.
12.3
At first, there only seemed a demand for an additional tool. As difficulties
kept manifesting themselves, it turned into a requirement for an innovative
technology. Next, the demand arose for a richer theory. See also Innovation dynamics across
theory, technology and tool.
12.4
Metapattern is a fundamental innovation. It encompasses relational theory,
network theory, and object and aspect orientation. It helps to establish a new
level of controlled integration because of its recursive concept of context
combined with pervasive temporal differentiation.
In metapattern, context is an unambiguous variable (recursive: a function of
relationship and object identity), which is the key (because object identities
can be linked across contexts) to theoretically unlimited scope, practical
compactness, flexibility, etcetera.
12.5
Metapattern/KnitbITs holds two time variables. One controls the structure
according to which the information is handled. The other time variable controls
values for the information itself. Integrating both structural variety and
instance variety at the operational level provides two additional orders of
flexibility.
12.6
My idea of structure amounts to an information model that is static at every
particular point in time. Each and every node, say, includes a temporal
indication. In other words, time is (re)present(ed) pervasively. This way,
dynamics are added to what basically is a static orientation. And it is the
closest I can so far imagine to practically cater for contextual time. Applying
metapattern allows you to register just any time, that is, future temporal indications
included. In fact, the temporal indication just 'sits' in the information
system. It is the process of comparing it with the reading of the system's
clock that determines whether the node is about the past, present or future. In
this sense, starting from a node valid at a future point in time, the present
sort of glides past it. As a time technology, I think it is practical. And
we've already proven the concept.
12.7
Metapattern already offers a solid solution for problems that haven’t even
been identified yet under the label of the ‘semantic web’ programme.
12.8
Developments in digital technology (open interconnection) challenge us to
change to a richer paradigm for information modeling.
12.9
In view of increasing scope for information services, infrastructural capabilities
beyond what is now known as the semantic web are compelling. Metapattern
delivers the flexibility, based especially on a formalism for multiple context
and time, for profiting from global interconnection.
12.10
You may start your orientation at metapattern and KnitbITs from www.informationdynamics.nl, especially under the
heading of ‘metapattern,’ and subsequently ‘publications.’
More publications are available from www.informationdynamics.nl/pwisse
(there, choose ‘English-language texts, only’).
12.11
Leaving temporal variety aside for the moment, you should be able to quickly
grasp how metapattern departs in terms of modeling behavioral variety when you
consult my paper The
ontological atom of behaviour.
12.12
Another introduction is Metapattern: information
modeling as enneadic dynamics. It guides the reader through a simplified
case, comparing the multicontextual approach to both
entity-attribute-relationship modeling and object orientation.
12.13
The basic introduction to metapattern remains part I of my book Metapattern: context
and time in information models (Addison-Wesley, 2001). See also my paper The pattern of
metapattern.
12.14
I wrote the first version of the paper on the multicontextual paradigm in
1991. It was the time that development of Java — albeit under a different name
— got started. You should therefore not be surprised that you don't find any
mention of Java-related developments. I based my understanding on concepts of
Smalltalk, at the time the proverbial OO language.
I am not a software engineer. You might see me as a conceptual modeler, i.e.
paving the way for software engineers to do their job of actual construction.
In my design capacity — I believe that especially in the USA design and
analysis are confused — I found conceptual approaches lacking. The paper Multicontextual
paradigm for object behavior is my earliest attempt to accommodate
pluriformity of behavior. Accommodate it in conceptual information models, that
is.
My approach has matured over the years; I now call it metapattern. I've written
several papers and a book about metapattern (context and time in information
models). See www.informationdynamics.nl/pwisse for my
publications. Our business website is www.informationdynamics.nl.
KnitbITs is metapattern's implementation. Martijn Houtman developed KnitbITs
for our company Information Dynamics. Metapattern/KnitbITs lets you do
different things, i.e. develop more complex information systems with
integration of pluriform behavior as simply as possible.
12.15
Metapattern:
context and time in information models treats the pervasive modeling of
time in sufficient detail. In my papers, etcetera, I've tended to abstract from
temporal variety, i.e. concentrating on my concept of context. For
conceptually, I believe the control of contextual variety is the really crucial
innovation.
12.16
The context is the type. I would say that's what it boils down to. Then, the
contextualized/partial identities are held together by the object's nil
identity.
12.17
I don't pretend to have written the final word on formalizing context (and
time), at all. I believe we're all just starting to experience a direction for
new, much-needed solutions. In the successor book Semiosis & Sign
Exchange (Information Dynamics, 2002), I've tried to create a foundation,
or philosophy, for it.
12.18
Metapattern implies a rigorous method for dealing with — the modeling of —
perspective.
12.19
I concentrate on necessary and sufficient structure in the ontological sense
(otherwise the efforts at the 'layer' of technological infrastructure would be
even more daunting).
12.20
Metapattern is a revolutionary paradigm for information modeling, providing the conceptual foundation for information management as the essential ingredient of 4891 — Project iDNA. Metapattern is
enhanced by an operational platform, KnitbITs. As it should with iDNA, it can be implemented in a radically distributed fashion, resulting in MiDNA.
12.21
With great interest, I have studied your Data Reference Model (DRM). I am
particularly interested in its development and application of the concept of
context for adding precision to data elements.
Could you please relay my message to the appropriate expert(s) within your
Office so that I might enter into a correspondence about control of multiple
contexts when a variety of information resources is gathered in an
all-encompassing system (such as the Internet now exemplifies)?
In the Netherlands, activities on e-government are coordinated by the Ministry
of the Interior. ICTU is the agency involved in executing several, what you
would probably call, federal e-government policies. With different scales of
operations reflecting our respective countries, yet the scope of ICTU might be
compared to FEAPMO's.
With ICTU, I work for the Dutch enterprise architecture programme. One of the
reasons I was engaged as a consultant — at least, I hope it was :-) — is my work on
"context and time in information models" which is also the subtitle
of my book 'Metapattern' (actually published in the USA). There, I present a
formal approach to multiple contexts for information objects. Metapattern
treats context as a variable, even as a recursive function of object and
relationship. It results in a compact, highly flexible 'method' for designing,
visualizing, implementing etc. information variety.
I believe a vital issue for e-government is precisely to unambiguously control
information variety across the public domain (and not stopping at national
boundaries) at the semantic level. I would therefore like to exchange
professional views with experts who are facing the same challenge.[message to
USA Federal Enterprise Architecture/Program Management Office, December 20,
2004]
12.22
I don't know about other countries, but in the
Netherlands citizens are officially registered in a more or less 'centralized'
information system. Subsequently, personal information taken from this Citizens
Register should be (re-)used by all government agencies when dealing with a
particular citizen. Such government-related interactions are widely diverse.
That is, a wide variety of relations (if only you look at such variety
relationally!). Now, based on metapattern it is of course possible to model
such diversity unambiguously. It is what it was invented for.
12.23
About UML, it's probably a blind spot with me, but, conceptually, what is
the point? I fail to see where and how it helps one to create/design — rather
than document — conceptual structures. As for documentation, am I mistaken that
UML doesn't take one beyond 'traditional' OO? And my whole point is that such
OO is lacking 'requisite variety.' Enter context.
12.24
I suppose the critical issue concerns the scope. How wide is the horizon
across which information should be unambiguous? Traditional, say, context-less
OO is sufficient in smaller domains, i.e., where we don't run into difficulties
with day-to-day language use. Another dimension to consider is flexibility (and
therefore modularity).
12.25
Getting information technology to work optimally comes down to creating a
balance between — what used to be called — data and process. My inclination is
to apply a data-perspective and then also accommodate processes-as-data.
Metapattern goes a long way toward establishing a balance. Still, it starts from
data, subsequently treating process declarations as data, too. I have practical
reasons for my preference as my primary interest lies with
optimizing/synthesizing data collections (for government processes, business
processes, etc.).
12.26
Even while the functional approach to information processing corresponds to
giving priority to process, metapattern holds potential for providing
additional structure for such a tool-kit. For functional building blocks
require a kind of bill of materials, too, i.e. a structure which directs how
they should be dynamically configured so as to constitute an instance of a
process.
12.27
The confrontation with a down-to-earth information requirement is a great
catalyst, provided you don't lose sight of the benefits of abstraction.
12.28
Metapattern supports the designer's art to the extent that a. (s)he doesn't
have to worry about temporal differentiation and b. behavioral differentiation
can be modeled unambiguously, that is contextually. With KnitbITs, those
additional degrees of freedom are available in working software. The
development of KnitbITs was greatly helped — and it still is — by a dual focus.
I apologize for the contradiction. What I mean is that we are not just working
from a theoretical specification. We are always pursuing the solution of a
practical problem. The actual problem is taken as representative for the
theoretical objective, too. Along the way, our concepts may change. We're
getting more mileage all around from approaching the development in terms of
separate, feasible laps. We're happy to conclude a lap. From wherever it has
brought us, we plan the next, etcetera.
An important consideration is getting potential customers interested in our
prototypes. It hasn't been very successful yet, but commercially it's the best
approach I can think of.
I'd also like to mention a feature answering the need to assimilate the world's
dynamics. Metapattern/KnitbITs allows you to prescribe what the organization of
the information is. With context and time added, of course it doesn't work
using a traditional data dictionary. Anyway, let me call it the
metainformation. What we've done is to include temporal variation at both the
level of information and the level of metainformation. You'll appreciate it can
take you a lot further when you're also empowered to change, not a particular
part, but the structure of the parts. With variable metainformation, too,
design is seamlessly supported. I emphasize that such support does not cover
the art aspect of design. You have to decide on new metainformation without any
'artificial intelligence' supplied by KnitbITs. Whatever design you decide upon
is subsequently 'administered,' thereby governing information system's behavior
as the temporal details indicate.
12.29
Metapattern combines on a single surface particularity (extension) and
generality (intension).
12.30
The aspect of time is increasingly gaining recognition but regretfully from
a predominantly technical orientation, with relational database as the
dominating technology. Rigorously combining time with context yields a
different, and of course in my view, a far more advantageous result.
2002-2005, web edition 2006 © Pieter Wisse