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2007-07-03

Why developers do not like to model the Real World ?

Years ago the concept of roles, real world modeling, reusability and many others were not known. People with different roles were modeled in different entities ( tables or classes ) as if they were different things. In many database models such as the Northwind example we would find a table for Clients, another table for Vendors, a table for Employees and so on.
This kind of approach leads to data ambiguity since a Person can be an Employee in some occasions and a Vendor in other occasions or this Person can be a Client. So if a Persons must have his address, name, contact, etc. modified, this change must be reflected in several other tables. This business rule or better this developer rule should be remembered by anyone responsible for developing a system that could modify the data in one of these tables.

The approach changed but recently I was taking a look at a Class Diagram from a work colleague and it called my attention that he modeled the Accounting Role as Class Accountant.
It is not uncommon to see the same pattern when modeling peoples roles in many other Class Diagrams or even Data Diagram ( Entity Relation ) . Many developers usually create a class (or table) for each role like this:

It is not hard to see that as long as the system grows, more roles are needed. The additional classes multiply in the Class Model making it each time more complex to understand.

Interestingly there is an Analysis Pattern that deals with people's roles problem by providing a more elegant Class Modeling like this:
Now the roles are better organized and if more roles are needed they can be added to the Class Hierarchy. And that is all right.

This could be a perfect solution to the problem but let me ask you a question.
Do the roles really exist in Real World ?
I mean, imagine there are no computers and information systems, how do you do to know someone's role in your organization ? Do you ask: What's your role ? Off course not.

If you are working for a Health Care Company, for example, in order to check if "Jack" is a doctor you ask him his Doctor License ( or Medical License or whatever document is used in your country ). To work as a Doctor, Jack must have this document (or license). He may not carry this document with him maybe it may not exist physically but there is some sort of license or document that grants him the permission to work with others people's lives.

The same happens for accountants. Accountants do not work with people lives but in many countries they must have a document or license that enables him or her to do their jobs.
In order to know if someone is an accountant, you just have to check if he has an Accountant Registration ( or any name you prefer ).

Using document or license ( think of licenses and document as the same thing ) metaphor instead of roles gives you a more natural representation of your business rules. If the Class Diagram is more naturally represented by using Real World characteristics it is also more intuitive. Thus it can be better understood and learned by newcome developers or other developers in a large enterprise system. Check out the Class Diagram below:

The Class Diagram above shows a Person with his/her documents the way as it is in the Real World. If a another Document Type is needed it can be added to the hierarchy just like the prior class diagram.