Category Metaphor

Metaphors aid thinking and provide a framework or model in the mind upon which new structures may be built. Click on the page title to find pages in this category.

There are two not-completely-separate discussions of metaphor on this Wiki, one dealing with the ways in which software-based products are viewed metaphorically by their users. For instance, the way in which Quicken seems to be your checkbook, or the way a word processor seems to be a typewriter. The other discussion deals with metaphor used in the software development process itself. For example, XP's SystemMetaphor. High level designs are often metaphorical, such as a "network backbone". These two discussions are not essentially different. I just distinguish them because the latter has directly to do with the quality of software engineering, whereas the former does not.

The essence of metaphor seems to be to ignore observed differences in order to generate new thoughts and insights. It seems inherently part of invention process, but it's antithetical to specification, and therefore its place in engineering is suspect. The key to excellent software engineering (a term way too overloaded to be useful) may be in discerning when metaphor is helpful, and when it is detrimental. (From WhatIsMetaphor)

The pages describing metaphors need refactoring.

Specific problems:

The metaphors are not categorized
Many pages on metaphors, but few high level organized categories
It is difficult to isolate pages describing metaphors that do not contain Metaphor in the title
Many of the pages describing metaphors are filled with discussion of whether to use metaphors at all - those pages should be refactored & combined into a debate page.
CategoryMetaphor is a mess - no sub-categories or quick descriptions

Questions/Solutions:

Are SystemMetaphor, ApplicationModel, and ArchitecturalStyle equivalent?
How is a DevelopmentMetaphor? and a DevelopmentMethodology? different?
EightSystemMetaphors should be refactored into a more general system metaphors page
- Now see ProvenSystemMetaphors

There are also analogies and similes. (Analogy and Like)

This all looks like a rather neglected corner of the wiki.

Perhaps there is room for some dedicated WikiGnome to dig in...?

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