Re: your opinions

From: Al Underbrink (Boeing)
Date: Thursday, July 6, 1995

From: Al Underbrink (Boeing)
To: Juergen Bauer (University of Bremen)
Cc: RP-ML
Date: Thursday, July 6, 1995
Subject: Re: your opinions
> RAPID PROTOTYPING   (RP)
> "Create a understandable, visible representation of a product or of a 
> part of it"
> This is the "top layer"; rather a management principle.
> It stands obove various techniques and methods. One of them is "Virtual 
> Prototyping", another are the "Rapid Prototyping Techniques". Another 
> example: the software people use the term "Rapid Prototyping", too, in 
> cases when they quickly show the look-and-feel of an application, before 
> implementing the real code.

Actually, rapid prototyping of software can also mean developing an
application with _limited_ functionality (i.e., some of "the real
code").  User interfaces are the most obvious and perhaps best use of
rapid prototyping in the software domain, but not the only use.

Since software prototyping has been a technique used for at least 15
years, perhaps the analogy with RP in the context of this list can be
expanded.  The user interface of a software prototype is analogous to
the geometry of a physical prototype.  Both help the designer/user
visualize the part/software, but both forms of prototype may lack the
required functionality.

One area where the analogy deviates is very interesting to me.  In
software, the prototype can be incrementally extended until the
functional requirements are satisfied.  This is due to the inherent
ability to modify code.  With a physical prototype, this is rarely the
case.  A physical prototype is often used and then discarded because
it's not nearly as easy to modify a physical prototype.

The key to this capability is the _process_ used to prototype software
systems.  Software development environments that support prototyping
and incremental development are finally becoming widespread.
Object-oriented techniques and better editors, interpreters,
compilers, and linkers are ways in which the software development
process supports the evolution of the prototype into the final
product.

I'm anxious to see processes for physical prototyping move towards
that of software prototyping.  That is, the result of learning how to
quickly create physical prototypes would ultimately be better
_manufacturing_ processes.  In too many cases (at least among the
designers I work with), the objective seems to be creating a prototype
rather than creating a product more efficiently and cost-effectively.
As it is, physical prototypes provide some benefit to the design
process, but also consume time and resources that often don't
contribute to more efficient production.

Anybody else thinking along these lines?

Al Underbrink				Advanced Computing
					The Boeing Company
Internet: al@hsvaic.hv.boeing.com	PO Box 240002, MS JN-55
Phone: 205-461-2934			Huntsville, AL 35824-6402


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