Talk:IDEF

IDEF0 and IDEF1X

While IDEF deserves a page, I believe IDEF0 and IDEF1X deserve their own pages as well. An arguement could be made for IDEF3 having its own page as well Tee Owe 14:06, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree IDEF0 and IDEF1X deserve their own pages. (I don't know enough about IDEF3 to have an opinion.) Guanajuato 20:57, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I created an article about IDEF0 today. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 01:33, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Time references

In the history section, one should add time references. One can't clearly figure out in what year (or what decade) IDEF1X was developed or first published. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pmerson (talk • contribs) 18:23, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

The "Logical Database Design Technique (LDDT)" chapter

I have been trying to improve the representation of IDEF in Wikipedia lately, especialy by starting articles about IDEF0, IDEF1X, IDEF5 and giving an overview of in Wikicommons, see here. Now this article IDEF, I think, should be a general introduction and give an overview of the whole concept and projects. At the moment I think this article is still missing a general introduction.

Now I whole text has been added toninght intended to clarify the relationship of IDEF1 and IDEF1X. Wenn I look at this whole text it seems more like a separate chapter about Logical Database Design Technique.

From the point of view of the contract administrators of the Air Force IDEF program, IDEF1X was a result of the ICAM IISS-6201 project and was further extended by the IISS-6202 project. The sub-contractor making the most contribution to the content of IDEF1X was DACOM. Principal contractors included Boeing and McDonnell Douglas Corporations. To satisfy the database modeling enhancement requirements that were identified in the IISS-6202 project, DACOM obtained a license to the Logical Database Design Technique (LDDT) and its supporting software (ADAM). From the point of view of the technical content of the modeling technique, IDEF1X is a renaming of LDDT.

LDDT had been developed in 1982 by Robert G. Brown of The Database Design Group entirely outside the IDEF program and with no knowledge of IDEF1. Nevertheless, the central goal of IDEF1 and LDDT was the same: produce a database neutral model of the persistent information needed by an enterprise by modeling the real-world entities involved. LDDT combined elements of the relational data model, the E-R model, and data generalization in a way specifically intended to support data modeling and the transformation of the data models into database designs

LDDT included multiple levels of model, the modeling of generalization/specialization, and the explicit representation of relationships by primary and foreign keys, supported by a well defined role naming facility. The primary keys and unambiguously role-named foreign keys expressed sometimes subtle uniqueness and referential integrity constraints that needed to be known and honored by whatever type of database was ultimately designed. Whether the database design used the integrity constraint based keys of the LDDT model as database access keys or indexes was an entirely separate decision. The precision and completeness of the LDDT models was an important factor in enabling the relatively smooth transformation of the models into database designs. Early LDDT models were transformed into database designs for IBM's hierarchical database, IMS. Later models were transformed into database designs for Cullinet's network database, IDMS, and many varieties of relational database.

The graphic syntax of LDDT differed from that of IDEF1 and, more importantly, LDDT contained interrelated modeling concepts not present in IDEF1. Therefore, instead of extending IDEF1, Mary E. Loomis of DACOM wrote a concise summary of the syntax and semantics of a substantial subset of LDDT, using terminology compatible with IDEF1 wherever possible. DACOM named the result IDEF1X and supplied it to the ICAM program. (IEEE 1998, p. iii) (Bruce 1992, p. xii)

Now I don't oppose this text. I do think this whole article is still out of balance, and this new explaination doesn't help much. I wonder if this text couldn't just be moved to the IDEF1X article, except perhaps the first paragraph. This will help simplify this article a little.

A second way to simplify this article is loose all the "project priorities numbers": 6201, 6202, 6203, ... I think these are just confusing here. I will take some action here soon. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 19:38, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Now I ran a first google search (to see if LDDT could be a separate article) and found almost now hits: Google rate of 113 and a 5 books on Google Books. So I wonder if LDDT is even woth mentioning here?

-- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 19:49, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Instead of responding the user has added the same text in the IDEX1X article. I don't think this is a constructive way of responding, so I removed it there for now.

My first question here is if LDDT is even worth mentioning here if it concerns IDEX1X. Maybe it should be moved to the IDEF1X article, which means it should be removed here (partly). -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 00:08, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

We got into an "edit conflict". Bear with me - this is my first crack at this. What I wrote in response to your talk comment was ...

Why LDDT

LDDT is worth mentioning because IDEF1X is essentially a renaming of LDDT. No history of IDEFX can be even remotely accurate without it. Before reading your note, I had copied some of the text, less the first paragraph as you suggest, to the IDEF1X entry (which I just discovered). To be very clear, to name all the authors of IDEF1 and neglect to credit the author of LDDT aka IDEF1X is intellectually disreputable. The NIST standard, the IEEE standards, Bruce's book, and Mary Loomis' book all make clear the essential contribution of LDDT and its correct authorship. The Wikipedia entry should do the same. By the way, I agree the IDEF entry is out of balance in other ways as well. Guanajuato (talk) 00:18, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

On moving text (partially) from the IDEF entry to the IDEF1X entry, I agree. I was quite surprised at the IDEF1X entry and its reproductions of errors of attribution, so I reacted perhaps too quickly. I trust you have read Bruce's book and the NIST and IEEE standards on IDEF1X. Guanajuato (talk) 00:27, 1 November 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Guanajuato (talk • contribs) 00:22, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. I have recently written the articles on IDEF0, IDEF1X and IDEF5, among other things, and studied most I could find online, but I am not a real expert in this field like you. So I do appreciate your input. Now I am acting both as a writer and a senior editor here, concerned with getting these article more interesting for a general audenience. I want things to start simple and become more detailled the more one proceed. So you agree on moving most of this text to the IDEF!X article!? -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 00:44, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Copy-paste registration

• In this edit text is copy/pasted from the IDEF4 article.
• In this edit text is copy/pasted from the IDEF0 article.
• In this edit text is copy/pasted from the IDEF5 article.
• In this edit text is copy/pasted from the IDEF6 article.

-- Mdd (talk) 12:44, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Renaming of the series of IDEF articles

This article is renamed (see Change 23:53, 26 January 2013) with the argument:

Nick Stavros moved page IDEF to Integration DEFinition: Original name is just an acronym, hard to disambiguate and could conflict with other uses of the acronym.)

However, there are several objections:

1. The main argument Original name is just an acronym is incorrect. The acronym IDEF has become the real and most common name.
2. The new title "Integration DEFinition" is imaginary. IDEF is the abbreviation of ICAM Definition Languages, the term "Integration DEFinition" is just a nickname. a 1999 recast, which third party sourced don't use in that way.
3. The last argument that it "could conflict with other uses of the acronym" hasn't been a problem in the first ten years.

There is a similar problem with the changes in the articles: IDEF0, IDEF1X, IDEF3, IDEF4, IDEF5, IDEF6. The most simple solution here is to move those articles back. -- Mdd (talk) 01:51, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

In order to restore the original situation here, I added a move (back) request, see below. -- Mdd (talk) 14:37/22:35, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Justification for name change

There is a website http://www.idef.com/ which says the name is Integrated DEFinition. Also see http://asq.org/service/body-of-knowledge/tools-idef which describes it as the Integrated Definition Modeling. As well as IEEE Std 1320.1-1998.

Request re-instating changes in intro text for Integration DEFinition

Thanks

Nick

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Nick Stavros (talk • contribs) 19:08, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

The website you are referring to http://www.idef.com/ confirms my first statement, for example with the sentence on that webpage:

KBSI has developed automated tools to support the IDEFØ, IDEF1, IDEF1X, and IDEF3 methods.

Now I am wrong about the second statement, and I corrected this here and in the article. The problem remains that reliable sources don't use the word Integration DEFinition. For example the second reference you gave spoke of Integrated Definition Modeling or Integrated Definition Modeling (IDEF), depending on how you read it. The right thing to do here is use the term which is the most used in reliable (secondary) sources, and to my knowledge, that is just IDEF. -- Mdd (talk) 22:37, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Nick Stavros (talk) 00:50, 8 February 2013 (UTC) Sorry I jumped in and modified the names directly but let me provide you some justification which I admit I should have done first. MY BAD. In defense of the name change ... Wikipedia is not intended to be a place for "people in the know", it is modeled after an encyclopedia. So, if you are commoner and want to know what IDEF is, its not clear ... its an acronym without meaning. For example, I had a couple of senior DoD managers get on line and try to understand what the geeks were talking about. After reading the article, it was still all a lot of "geek speak" and they came to me and asked me to explain it. To me, this is the intended audience for wikipedia, not those people in the know who speak in jargon. That is why I think that the current emphasis on reference is good policy. ::::: The references for those people who are now familiar with the jargon and ready to go to the next step.

In the article itself it tries to help map these acronyms to the functions they are associated with ... why, because I'm sorry ... IDEF0 means nothing, but Functional Modeling does mean something and an outside does understand that because it is has common English meaning. Also, since there are pages for IDEF0, why not place those where the person who is reading it can navigate to it quickly. Making the person navigate back to the top, remember that they were reading about IDEF0 and then following the link seems silly.

Again, to me it comes down to audience. Wikipedia is intended to be a place for people not in the know to go to start a "knowledge quest", not a place for people in the know to re-affirm how cleaver they are in geek speak.

As for name using mixed case letter versus lowercase letters, this is a convention that is intended to help the wikipedians make links to pages rather than a readability or comprehension issue. Sine the original articles would still be IDEF redirected to the mixed case name, nothing in any current documents need to change and these can still be used by wikipedians for links to make coding easier. Again, I think we all need to ask ourselves, who are the articles for and what makes sense to them. Our jobs is to provide that beginner enough, correct information so they can get started.

Please read Wikipedia:No original research. Wikipedia articles (and article titles) are based on reliable sources, not personal experience and conviction. We use the same terms that reliable sources use, and that's it. -- Mdd (talk) 02:14, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

03:33, 8 February 2013 (UTC) The proposed titles are the terms that reliable source are already using. They are already listed in the current Wikipedia article (See Overview on IDEF Methods). Either you get rid of overview in the article or you use the names consistently in a way that a commoner can understand. IEEE in 1997 recast the names and I think its pretty hard to get more reliable source than that, see History. This seems to be turning into a pissing match and the conversation seems to be about insiders versus people who are trying to improve the quality of the article for communicating with the commoner. If you are just angry with me for admittedly incorrectly renaming the articles without going through the proper protocol, I understand and as I have said except the blame. However, it seems that you are punishing the wikipeia users by holding a grudge. Hand the article to a several Freshman in University in its current state and several with the titles as I had laid them out and see which they prefer. All I can say is that the people I work with in the DoD preferred my convention versus the current convention. At the end, we were actually able to have reasonable discussions about the various IDEF models/methods and when and how to use them. We tried to clarification within our group by following Link for Reference 10 and its broken as is link for reference 10. References 3-8 confirm the title as IDEF# <name>, so again the authoritative references support the name changes. Reference 1 also refers to then as Integration Definition (IDEF) methods and within the text and in the title it uses the names first and then the acronyms like process description capture (IDEF3) and TOWARD A BUSINESS CONSTRAINT DISCOVERY METHOD (IDEF9). Reference 14 from NIST (very authoritative in my opinion) refers to it as Integration Definition Function Modeling (IDEF0) . Do I need to go on? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nick Stavros (talk • contribs)

I think we indeed could (and should) improve the "Overview on IDEF Methods" section of the current article. I will give it a try next week, but you are welcome to give it a start. -- Mdd (talk) 13:24, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved per request. Favonian (talk) 20:57, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

---

• Integration DEFinition - IDEF
• Integration DEFinition for Function Modeling (IDEF0) - IDEF0
• Integration DEFinition for Data Modeling (IDEF1X) - IDEF1X
• Integration DEFinition for Process Description Capture (IDEF3) - IDEF3
• Integrated DEFinition for Object-Oriented Design (IDEF4) - IDEF4
• Integrated DEFinition for Ontology Description Capture Method (IDEF5) - IDEF5
• Integrated DEFinition for Design Rationale Capture (IDEF6) - IDEF6

– Request to rename articles back to original title. Articles are just renamed for invalid reasons to artificial titles, see also here -- Mdd (talk) 14:36, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose: Requested Keep Integrated DEFinition (IDEF) names. Added IEEE References to justify the name change. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nick Stavros (talk • contribs) 19:20, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
  • That IEEE References only confirms, that The acronym IDEF has become the real... name. -- Mdd (talk) 22:42, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
    • For example that IEEE webpage about the "1320.1-1998 - IEEE Standard for Functional Modeling Language - Syntax and Semantics for IDEF0" gives the following text:

      IDEF0 function modeling is designed to represent the decisions, actions and activities of an existing or prospective organization or system. IDEF0 graphics and accompanying texts are presented in an organized and systematic way to gain understanding, support analysis, provide logic for potential changes, specify requirements and support system-level design and integration activities. IDEF0 may be used to model a wide variety of systems, composed of people, machines, materials, computers and information of all varieties, and structured by the relationships among them, both automated and non-automated. For new systems, IDEF0 may be used first to define requirements and to specify the functions to be carried out by the future system. As the basis of this architecture, IDEF0 may then be used to design an implementation that meets these requirements and performs these functions. For existing systems, IDEF0 can be used to analyze the functions that the system performs and to record the means by which these are done.

In this webtext the term IDEF0 is used in six sentences:

1. IDEF0 function modeling is designed to...
2. IDEF0 graphics and accompanying texts are presented in...
3. IDEF0 may be used to model...
4. IDEF0 may be used first to...
5. IDEF0 may then be used to...
6. IDEF0 can be used to...

It seems clear, that the term IDEF0 is being used as a real name. -- Mdd (talk) 22:34, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

• Comment IEEE standards are not my area of expertise but I think there are some Wikipedia policies that are relevant to this discussion that have yet to be mentioned. See Wikipedia:Article names#Considering title changes. It seems to me that the first move should have gone through the Requested move process. Unless there is a consensus for the article to stay at the new title, it should revert to the original. --Pine^✉ 04:02, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support Per Pine. And there are more argument to support the move (back), such as:
  1. The title Integration DEFinition is a violation of the rules on Wikipedia article title format, such as: Use lower case, except for proper names.
  2. The title Integration DEFinition lacks precision (see also here). In third party sources the name "integrated definition" has all kind of meaning
  3. The term "Integration DEFinition for Data Modeling (IDEF1X)" is incorrect, the formal and common phrase is "Integration DEFinition for Information Modeling (IDEF1X)"
  4. The give reason to move the IDEF article Original name is just an acronym, hard to disambiguate and could conflict with other uses of the acronym. is invalid for IDEF0, IDEF1X, IDEF3, IDEF4, IDEF5 and IDEF6.

  This series has been created over three years ago, and there has never been any signal that these article titles are confusing, or in any other way conflicting. -- Mdd (talk) 18:11, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose, but different proposal Partly support:
  • Integration DEFinition - IDEF methods
  • Integration DEFinition for Function Modeling (IDEF0) - IDEF0 method
  • Integration DEFinition for Data Modeling (IDEF1X) - IDEF1X method
  • Integration DEFinition for Process Description Capture (IDEF3) - IDEF3 method
  • Integrated DEFinition for Object-Oriented Design (IDEF4) - IDEF4 method
  • Integrated DEFinition for Ontology Description Capture Method (IDEF5) - IDEF5 method
  • Integrated DEFinition for Design Rationale Capture (IDEF6) - IDEF6 method
  1. I understand the proposal of Nick Stavros if you look at Unified Modeling Language instead of UML, Business Process Model and Notation instead of BPMN, Specification and Description Language instead of SDL, but I agree also with Mdd that the title Integration DEFinition is not good because of WP:TITLEFORMAT bullet Use lower case, except for proper names.
  2. I was first in favor of Integrated Definition, but apparently you have almost the same chance to find Integration Definition as Integrated Definition, even in the same document as Business Modelling: UML vs. IDEF and I did not find a reliable source explaining the history on IDEF name changes, to bring the balance in one or the other direction.
  3. Moreover names like Integrated Definition for function modeling for IDEF0, are not supporting directly WP:NAMINGCRITERIA bullet Conciseness.
  4. To avoid ambiguous abbreviations (WP:TITLEFORMAT third bullet), be in line with WP:COMMONNAME and because of arguments 2 and 3, I came up with above proposal. By the way http://www.idef.com/ talks about IDEF Method Reports and the IDEF definition on TechTarget talks about IDEF Methods.
  • My 2cents, SchreyP ^(messages) 21:00, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
  • I like to reconsider part of my proposal. I support a move back to (IDEF0, IDEF1X, IDEF4...) of the child articles, since this is specific enough. But for the parent article I would like to propose something different than IDEF. International Defence Industry Fair (IDEF) has the same right to use this abbreviation. Both meanings are applicable only in a certain context. In broad military perspective both meanings could even be applicable. I have no specific preference to IDEF methods. It was the most close I could find based on reliable references. SchreyP ^(messages) 23:27, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

What we title this article is not dependent on other uses of IDEF. If we secondarily determine that this article is not the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for IDEF, IDEF can be a disambiguation page and we can call this article IDEF (modeling language) or somesuch. -—Kvng 15:35, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

• Support As a practicioner who has used IDEF in the past, that is how I would search for it and I would refer to it. While the arguement surrounding UML and BPMN is a good one, these acronyms are commonly known by about 30% of the practioner community in spelled out form. I would place the level at below 5% for IDEF. I think this Google Trends page illustrates this point nicely. Lwoodyiii (talk) 15:28, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support Mdd (talk · contribs) is simply requesting a restoration of titles changes without discussion by Nick Stavros (talk · contribs). Since there is some confusion over what the acronyms stand for and therefore I presume these things a primarily known by their acronyms, I support using the acronyms as titles. The recent change to titles that include a parenthetical acronym is definitely not an improvement (see MOS:TITLES). -—Kvng 15:12, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support. Mainly to return to common names as per WP:AT, but as a bonus it reverts undiscussed controversial changes and removes the current non-standard name formats, which look like disambiguation but aren't. Andrewa (talk) 11:00, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

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