Roles, their modeling in IC

Task and its solution

Let there be users of the information system. Authorized users are allowed to build their models in this IP. Unauthorized can only watch how others build these models, but they themselves can not do that.
Question: how many roles in IP?

Let there be two heaps of sand, piled nearby.
Question: Is this one heap, or are there still two heaps, but now dumped together?

Suppose there is a position of director of school №123. Sidorov takes this post after Ivanov.
Question: Are these two different directors, or one director?
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Today, Ivanov plays the role of Princess Mary.
Question: tomorrow, when he will play a role with the same name, will it be the same role, or another?
Question: Sidorov, who today plays a role with the same name, plays the same role, or another?

There is a clock mechanism that plays the role of a clock drive in a clock on a city tower. Let it be broken and replaced with another watch mechanism.
Question: is the clock drive now different, or is it the same clock drive, but with a different clock mechanism?

All these questions (and similar ones) can be answered in the same way - everyone decides for himself, as it suits him, based on the context. This, as a rule, does not annoy anyone, because there is no need to build models. As an analyst, I have to constantly be on the alert. You need to understand how the client sees the subject area in order to build the model correctly. Today I want to show you the sequence of reasoning that I do.

Solution explanation

Suppose there is a director of school №123 Sidorov. Question: Is this the same role as the director of school No. 123 Ivanov? First you need to understand for whom the information system is built?

Let it be built to collect statistical reports on school directors. For this reporting, all directors are faceless. There is no difference Ivanov or Sidorov occupy the position, but it is important to distinguish the directors of different schools. It is clear that from this point of view, the role of the school principal is one.

Now suppose that an IP is built to analyze the performance of various school principals. In such an IP, it will be important to distinguish Ivanov as a director and Sidorov as a director. From this point of view, the roles of directors will be different.

In order to understand how to move from the first view to the second, you need to understand what a role is. I wrote about this in detail in the article Modeling accounting objects . Let me remind theses. A role is a kind of 4-dimensional volume of space-time, occupied at different times by different people, or rather their temporal parts. This means that a role can be represented as a structure consisting of temporal parts of people, each of which is characterized by a start date and an end date for its participation. The role itself is not a set of these temporal parts, but a gluing together of all these parts.

The concept of glueing should be explained in detail. Just like the concept of separation. If we take the four legs and the tabletop, then by joining them together, we get a table. Looking at the place that occupies the table, we can switch our attention, at different times seeing 4 legs and a tabletop, then the table entirely. Gluing is a process of perception, thanks to which we can imagine a lot as a whole. Separation is a process of perception, thanks to which we can present the whole as much. Our consciousness is capable of both splitting and gluing. But we are not always aware of these processes.

Imagine that you have a few heaps of sand. You put them together and got one pile. Similarly, gluing of temporal parts occurs. You take them and glue them. Of the many small temporal parts, you get one larger temporal part. Thus, in order to obtain the role of the director of school No. 123, it is necessary to glue together the temporal parts: the role of director of school No. 123, played by Ivanov with the role of director of school No. 123, played by Sidorov.

If it is possible to connect heaps of sand, then it is possible to divide one heap into parts. By analogy, the role can be divided into parts. Let there be the role of the school director played by Sidorov. Imagine it as a set of roles, each of which is Sidorov’s daily role as director from 8-00 when he comes to work, until 5-00 when he leaves. We can say that the role of the school director played by Sidorov is the gluing together of all the daily roles of Sidorov.

Let there be many daily roles played by Sidorov. As we can see, these roles can be glued together and get one big role. You can stack them up and see what they have in common - create a typical daily role. You can make a statistical analysis of these daily roles. At the same time, it is important to understand what objects we work with, and what attributes are used. If there is a question about the duration of the work of Sidorov in the role of director, then it is a question of gluing together the daily roles into one big role, and this duration is a property of this role. If there is a question about when it is customary Sidorov comes to work, then we are talking about the typical daily role of Sidorov, and this time is a property of the typical daily role. If there is a question about what time. AVERAGE Sidorov comes to work, then we are talking about a multitude of daily roles, and this time is a property of many daily roles. Therefore, if we want to correctly transfer these properties to the information system, we need to create all the objects I listed in the information system: daily roles, glued large role, typical role, many roles. It should be remembered that the set in the IP is a separate object with its attributes, and not just a bunch of roles.

It is possible to glue together the roles of all principals of all schools, while getting such a huge role - the principal, who will be performed by different people at the same time in different places. Therefore, the role is not necessarily performed by one person at one time. The role can be performed by different people at the same time in different places. At the same time, this huge role should not be confused with the standard role of the school principal! Such confusion is quite common. In addition, a role is often given for a role.

The question I started the post with: there are authorized users and unauthorized users. Question: how many roles in this IP?

I hope, now the answer is clear: as much as necessary. You can call the role of user participation in each session. You can glue all the sessions related to one account, and define the role for this glue, you can glue all sessions of authorized users, and define the role for this glue. You can glue all the sessions and define the role for this glueing - this will be the glueing of authorized and unauthorized users. And you can glue the session of work in this program with the sessions of work in other programs. Etc. and whatever. The question of expediency. Everything depends on the goals of our accounting: the model constructed must meet the goals of our work.

The nature of roles and physical objects

After our conversation, the impression remains that the role is something ephemeral - gluing, cutting. But in fact, the role is of the same nature as any other physical object. The fact that we get a role by cutting space-time, or gluing it together, does not make the role something different from any other physical object. Imagine a world in which people know about the transmigration of souls from one body to another. At the same time, they do not just know it, they have got passports for the soul, not for the body. They often say that I rested perfectly in the role of Ivanov, or in the role of Sidorov I did not work well on my karma. And what you see as an object, they perceive as a role.

Physical objects can also be glued and cut to get new objects. For example, a plank plus a plank is a bench. Or the table can be cut on the tabletop and legs. Or matter in the solar system can be divided into a gas-dust cloud left after a supernova explosion and a planetary system that later emerged from this cloud.

As a result, you will be able to understand that everything around us is no more than the result of our interpretation of the real and incomprehensible world. And the fact that our consciousness distinguishes the physical world as a reality and a world of roles - as imagined by us - is nothing more than egocentrism, similar to the anthropocentrism of the Ptolemy system.

The explanation of how objects appear in our minds I did in the article Origin of Accounting Objects