Actually, here's a Tom Love case study that shows a couple of his models.
This model may represent the least expensive CASE tool on the market -- materials cost $20.35. It was more useful than any CASE tools I have ever used.
We used it in three important ways.
It fixed the number of classes that we would deliver in the finished application and we did not allow new ones to be added, unless existing ones could be removed.
It was a very useful way to publicly document which classes had been code reviewed (blue ribbons) and tested (green ribbons).
It helped everyone understand what was being built and how much time and effort it takes to do testing, documentation and code reviews.
当时 CASE 系统承诺带来显着的好处，但速度却慢得令人沮丧， 有缺陷、不稳定、过度扩展并且使用起来非常尴尬。基本上，看好潜力但看不到交付。
我记得曾与一位从事与我不同项目的分析师进行过交谈。她的团队有 对他们的 CASE 系统感到非常沮丧，以至于他们将其扔掉并诉诸“纸盘和绳子” 造型。他们保留了一间会议室，拆除了所有家具，并使用标签布置了他们的流程模型 带有连接它们的字符串（代表数据流）的纸盘。她声称这更多 比它所取代的 CASE 系统有用。
The styrofoam ball model appears to date back to the mid 1990's - a time when CASE (Computer Aided Systems Analysis) systems were all the rage.
At that time CASE systems promised significant benefits but were dismally slow, buggy, unstable, overextended and downright awkward to use. Basically, long on potential but short on delivery.
I remember having a conversation with an analyst working on a different project from mine. Her team had become so frustrated with their CASE system that they trashed it and resorted to "paper plates and string" modeling. They reserved a meeting room, removed all the furniture, and laid out their process model using labeled paper plates with strings (representing data flows) connecting them. She claimed it was much more useful than the CASE system it replaced.
I suspect that the styrofoam ball model had similar roots.
Using styrofoam balls or paper plates fostered design "buy-in". If a team finds something to rally around it naturally creates a common design focus. It is simple, concrete and minimal - using it requires a lot of face to face interaction and discussion. And that is where the value comes from. I suspect if you brought a new person into the project and told them to bring themselves up-to-speed by reviewing the "model" they would be "dead in the water". However, walk them through the "model" and a real conversation would occur where all the required information need to perform on the project would be imparted very quickly and efficiently.
Do I think styrofoam balls could become a sustainable modeling tool? No, I don't. They would be a real pain to keep up to date in a changing environment. They convey little information. There are better tools available today. And most importantly, if the team you are working with don't "buy" it, and they probably won't, it will look really stupid - kind of like a sports team mascot, a rallying point only if the team "buys it".
No, we don't do this. And in my 30-odd year history in the IT industry, I've never heard of anyone doing this.
The only way this could help you design better systems is by:
keeping the class count down since it's hard to build the styrofoam model; and
minimising changes, since updating it would be a serious pain in the rear end.
Other than those two dubious features, I can't see this as being very useful. I'd almost conclude it was some sort of prank. Far better to do some real work, I think.
Seriously, if we tried to model our application with styro coffee cups and straws, our bosses would be calling the men in white coats.
Post-it Notes on a whiteboard seem to be popular in the circles I travel in. Objects go on the Post-Its, and you rearrange them until you get your relationships the way you want em.
And then there are the Color Modeling people who use a 4-pack of colored Post-Its and assign an archetype to each color. It doesn't sound like this is much of an improvement, but standing across a room looking at it, you can tell where there are missing features or unidentified objects in the system.
There is one application to this that I think we tend to forget-- using tools to articulate an architecture comes naturally to us after years in the industry, but there are valuable, albeit less technically-minded, stakeholders who may not grasp vital concepts as readily. It would sometimes be a lifesaver to point to a cluster of balls and say, "This is the Language Processing Model, and if I implement the feature you want, it will have consequences here, here, and here. You can see that there are a lot of balls connected there".
Architects, be they designing buildings or systems, might rely on those tangible models to indoctrinate the check writers into the process.
And I thought that UML was useless. The styrofoam ball model makes UML look positively elegant by comparison.
Ward Cunningham's CRC card idea is more useful, even cheaper, and still retains that tactile quality that Dr. Love was after.
I had never heard of the idea until I read this question. It deserves an up vote for originality. And the "Windows" and "Lotus Notes" pictures are priceless.
Sheets of ruled paper taped to the wall, where each sheet is a component, class, entity, or whatever is needed. Everyone has a pencil.
Everyone can write on them "flushing" out the model during the design meetings. Such as, meeting notes, implemetation notes, new classes, removed classes, reasons why you do not have a particular class, and so on. After the design meeting, the principal designer takes them down and rewrite them, again "flushing" them out with pen in "rough-draft" versions. The designer can then make decisions based on the notes of each sheet, create new sheets for any additional components. Generate topics for next meeting, note any descrepancies, note any design / implementation details needed for coding, or whatever else they need to do.
Repeat the meetings until everyone is satisfied. Pencil is new stuff, pen is previous items. Once everyone is happy, the designer creates the working-draft, and posts where everyone can see and initial, in pen, their acceptance of the "working-draft".
Nothing is final. Pen versions are "latest" versions. Pencil versions are "work-in-progress" or "draft" versions.
Simple, fast, flexible, no wasting time on the computer, with high visiblity. Working man's Wiki.
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我找到了几个泡沫塑料模型：
Windows 95
和
Lotus Notes
（如果有帮助的话）
实际上，这是一个 Tom Love 案例研究，显示了他的几个模型。
编辑：对象模型的照片
替代文本 http://img686.imageshack.us/img686 /82/stryrofoamobjectmodel.jpg
I found a couple of styrofoam models for:
Windows 95
and
Lotus Notes
(if that helps)
Actually, here's a Tom Love case study that shows a couple of his models.
Edit: photo of object model
alt text http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/82/stryrofoamobjectmodel.jpg
聚苯乙烯泡沫塑料球模型似乎可以追溯到 20 世纪 90 年代中期 - 当时 CASE（计算机辅助系统分析）
系统风靡一时。
当时 CASE 系统承诺带来显着的好处，但速度却慢得令人沮丧，
有缺陷、不稳定、过度扩展并且使用起来非常尴尬。基本上，看好潜力但看不到交付。
我记得曾与一位从事与我不同项目的分析师进行过交谈。她的团队有
对他们的 CASE 系统感到非常沮丧，以至于他们将其扔掉并诉诸“纸盘和绳子”
造型。他们保留了一间会议室，拆除了所有家具，并使用标签布置了他们的流程模型
带有连接它们的字符串（代表数据流）的纸盘。她声称这更多
比它所取代的 CASE 系统有用。
我怀疑聚苯乙烯泡沫塑料球模型有类似的根源。
使用聚苯乙烯泡沫塑料球或纸盘可以促进设计的“认可”。如果一个团队
找到一些东西来围绕它自然地创建一个共同的设计焦点。它简单、具体且
最小 - 使用它需要很多
面对面的互动和讨论。这就是价值的来源。我怀疑
如果你把一个新人带入项目并告诉他们通过以下方式让自己跟上进度
回顾“模型”，他们将“死在水中”。然而，引导他们完成
“模型”和真正的对话将会发生，其中所有必需的信息都需要
项目的执行将非常快速有效地传授。
我认为聚苯乙烯泡沫塑料球可以成为可持续的建模工具吗？不，我不。他们将是一个真正的
在不断变化的环境中保持最新状态的痛苦。它们传达的信息很少。有更好的工具可用
今天。最重要的是，如果与您一起工作的团队不“购买”它，并且他们
可能不会，它看起来真的很愚蠢——有点像运动队的吉祥物，一个集结点
仅当团队“购买”时。
The styrofoam ball model appears to date back to the mid 1990's - a time when CASE (Computer Aided Systems Analysis)
systems were all the rage.
At that time CASE systems promised significant benefits but were dismally slow,
buggy, unstable, overextended and downright awkward to use. Basically, long on potential but short on delivery.
I remember having a conversation with an analyst working on a different project from mine. Her team had
become so frustrated with their CASE system that they trashed it and resorted to "paper plates and string"
modeling. They reserved a meeting room, removed all the furniture, and laid out their process model using labeled
paper plates with strings (representing data flows) connecting them. She claimed it was much more
useful than the CASE system it replaced.
I suspect that the styrofoam ball model had similar roots.
Using styrofoam balls or paper plates fostered design "buy-in". If a team
finds something to rally around it naturally creates a common design focus. It is simple, concrete and
minimal - using it requires a lot
of face to face interaction and discussion. And that is where the value comes from. I suspect
if you brought a new person into the project and told them to bring themselves up-to-speed by
reviewing the "model" they would be "dead in the water". However, walk them through the
"model" and a real conversation would occur where all the required information need to
perform on the project would be imparted very quickly and efficiently.
Do I think styrofoam balls could become a sustainable modeling tool? No, I don't. They would be a real
pain to keep up to date in a changing environment. They convey little information. There are better tools available
today. And most importantly, if the team you are working with don't "buy" it, and they
probably won't, it will look really stupid - kind of like a sports team mascot, a rallying point
only if the team "buys it".
不，我们不这样做。在我从事 IT 行业 30 多年的历史中，我从未听说过有人这样做。
这可以帮助您设计更好的系统的唯一方法是：
除了这两个可疑的功能之外，我不认为这是非常有用的。我几乎可以断定这是某种恶作剧。我认为，做一些实际的工作要好得多。
说真的，如果我们尝试用 styro 咖啡杯和吸管来模拟我们的应用程序，我们的老板会打电话给穿白大褂的人。
No, we don't do this. And in my 30-odd year history in the IT industry, I've never heard of anyone doing this.
The only way this could help you design better systems is by:
Other than those two dubious features, I can't see this as being very useful. I'd almost conclude it was some sort of prank. Far better to do some real work, I think.
Seriously, if we tried to model our application with styro coffee cups and straws, our bosses would be calling the men in white coats.
白板上的便利贴似乎在我所在的圈子里很流行。物品放在便利贴上，你可以重新排列它们，直到你按照你想要的方式建立人际关系。
然后是颜色建模人员，他们使用 4 包彩色便利贴，并为每种颜色分配一个原型。听起来这并不是一个很大的改进，但是站在房间对面看它，您可以看出系统中哪里缺少功能或无法识别的对象。
Post-it Notes on a whiteboard seem to be popular in the circles I travel in. Objects go on the Post-Its, and you rearrange them until you get your relationships the way you want em.
And then there are the Color Modeling people who use a 4-pack of colored Post-Its and assign an archetype to each color. It doesn't sound like this is much of an improvement, but standing across a room looking at it, you can tell where there are missing features or unidentified objects in the system.
我认为我们往往会忘记一个应用程序——在行业工作多年后，使用工具来阐明架构对我们来说是很自然的事情，但是有一些有价值的利益相关者，尽管缺乏技术头脑，他们可能无法掌握重要的概念，例如容易。有时，指着一簇球说：“这是语言处理模型，如果我实现你想要的功能，它会在这里、这里和这里产生后果。你可以看到，有有很多球连接在那里”。
建筑师，无论是设计建筑物还是系统，都可能依靠这些有形的模型来向支票编写者灌输整个过程。
There is one application to this that I think we tend to forget-- using tools to articulate an architecture comes naturally to us after years in the industry, but there are valuable, albeit less technically-minded, stakeholders who may not grasp vital concepts as readily. It would sometimes be a lifesaver to point to a cluster of balls and say, "This is the Language Processing Model, and if I implement the feature you want, it will have consequences here, here, and here. You can see that there are a lot of balls connected there".
Architects, be they designing buildings or systems, might rely on those tangible models to indoctrinate the check writers into the process.
我认为UML毫无用处。相比之下，聚苯乙烯泡沫塑料球模型使 UML 看起来非常优雅。
Ward Cunningham 的 CRC 卡创意更有用，甚至更便宜，并且仍然保留了 Love 博士所追求的触觉品质。
在我读到这个问题之前，我从未听说过这个想法。它的原创性值得投赞成票。而“Windows”和“Lotus Notes”图片更是无价之宝。
And I thought that UML was useless. The styrofoam ball model makes UML look positively elegant by comparison.
Ward Cunningham's CRC card idea is more useful, even cheaper, and still retains that tactile quality that Dr. Love was after.
I had never heard of the idea until I read this question. It deserves an up vote for originality. And the "Windows" and "Lotus Notes" pictures are priceless.
贴在墙上的几张直纹纸，每张纸都是一个组件、类、实体或任何需要的东西。每个人都有一支铅笔。
每个人都可以在设计会议期间在上面写下“冲洗”模型。例如，会议记录、实施记录、新类、删除的类、没有特定类的原因等等。设计会议结束后，首席设计师把它们记下来并重写，再次用笔“冲洗”出“草稿”版本。然后，设计人员可以根据每个工作表的注释做出决定，为任何其他组件创建新工作表。为下次会议生成主题，记下任何差异，记下编码所需的任何设计/实现细节，或者他们需要做的任何其他事情。
重复会议，直到每个人都满意为止。铅笔是新东西，钢笔是旧物品。一旦每个人都满意，设计师就会创建工作草案，并将其张贴在每个人都可以看到的地方，并用钢笔签名表示他们对“工作草案”的接受。
没有什么是最终的。笔版本是“最新”版本。铅笔版本是“正在进行中”或“草稿”版本。
简单、快速、灵活，不浪费时间在电脑上，可见性高。工人维基。
Sheets of ruled paper taped to the wall, where each sheet is a component, class, entity, or whatever is needed. Everyone has a pencil.
Everyone can write on them "flushing" out the model during the design meetings. Such as, meeting notes, implemetation notes, new classes, removed classes, reasons why you do not have a particular class, and so on. After the design meeting, the principal designer takes them down and rewrite them, again "flushing" them out with pen in "rough-draft" versions. The designer can then make decisions based on the notes of each sheet, create new sheets for any additional components. Generate topics for next meeting, note any descrepancies, note any design / implementation details needed for coding, or whatever else they need to do.
Repeat the meetings until everyone is satisfied. Pencil is new stuff, pen is previous items. Once everyone is happy, the designer creates the working-draft, and posts where everyone can see and initial, in pen, their acceptance of the "working-draft".
Nothing is final. Pen versions are "latest" versions. Pencil versions are "work-in-progress" or "draft" versions.
Simple, fast, flexible, no wasting time on the computer, with high visiblity. Working man's Wiki.
不，我的团队不这样做。
我很想用图像宏来模拟。但我认为这个想法太愚蠢了，简直就是自嘲。
No. My team does not do this.
And I am badly tempted to mock with image macros. But I'm contemplating that the idea is silly enough that it is self-mocking.