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Terry Love kirjoitti 30.8.2012 kello 2.05:
4. My perspective is 'historical analysis of complex outcomes cannot
be done in words'. Instead, it is better done through use of a dynamic
analysis - mostly *instead* of the historical analysis. The historical
analyses can be done later by interpreting the output of the dynamic
analysis.
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Terry, Ken,
I'm a firm believer in models; like Terry I was in early 1980s working as a humble programmer for a group of economists led by Osmo Forssell when they developed the full-scale input-output model of Finnish economy, modeling the mutual dependencies between the 48 sectors of economy. Solid work, because as far as I know, the derivatives of those models are still in use at statistical office and ministry of finance of Finland (surely they have reprogrammed the code, however...:-)). Mathematically such a model is no rocket science, but it shows anyway issues that just cannot otherwise be seen.
Modeling and simulation can and will provide wonderful tools for different branches of design, and I can sense Terry's vision and frustration why it does not happen sooner.
But there are limits of what can and should be modelled. My former student co-authored a while ago a paper called "A groupwares life" (Pipek & Wulf 1999) that tells the story of a particular, unique system from design to installation, use and finally discarding. The path is far from a simple one, and quite a number of researchers have found the paper informative. But that level of historical events surely is below any radar of modeling.
The most important issue in modeling is the availability of data, I believe. With our input-output model the programming was a tiny effort when compared to the work needed to cull and clean the data so that it was useful. And that was not any data, but the best possible available: official statistics provided by well-founded and competent professional organization devoted just to that topic. Still it needed years of work to made it useful for the model.
So I would suggest the following amendement to Terry's credo: "*Given that enough good quality data is cost-effectively available (my amendement)*, historical analysis of complex outcomes is better be done through use of dynamic analysis". Otherwise we have to resort to what is possible in given circumstances.
In large-scale design – design of systems, structures, infrastructures – such data may be at hand or can be made so; but in small-scale design, such as designing artifacts and practices, probably less so. Thus historical analysis has and will have its place.
all the best,
--Kari Kuutti
Univ. Oulu, Finland
PS. Ken, sorry, no offence taken whatsoever; I should apologize instead when using your mistake just as an excuse for casting a half-baked joke on citations... could not resist the temptation, shame on me. Your mistake is rather common with native English speakers; a double u and double t are both against the rules of lettering in English, two such misfits next to each other just overwhelm the perception. If I only had a dollar for every...
PPS. Cameron, nice to hear from you and congratulations from me as well. And thanks for the references -- it is hopeless to try to be original with so many younger and sharper minds around ...
Pipek & Wulf (1999) A groupware's life. In (Bodker, Kyng, Schmidt eds.) Proc. ECSCW 1999, pp. 199-218, Springer, London.
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