Executable UML: A Foundation for Model-Driven Architecture

18.3. Fit

Before the (building) architect Christopher Alexander influenced the software community with his book A Pattern Language[1], he also influenced thinking on requirements with an earlier book, Notes on the Synthesis of Form[2]. In this book, Alexander described design problems thus:

[E]very design problem begins with an effort to achieve fitness between two entities: the form in question and its context. The form is the solution to the problem; the context defines the problem. In other words, when we speak of design, the real object of discussion is not the form alone, but the ensemble comprising the form and its context. Good fit is a desired property of this ensemble, which relates to some particular division of the ensemble into form ...