research

Cross-project engineering research for FlossWare.

This repository holds investigations and experiments before they become standards, architecture decisions, or implementation requirements. Research may be incomplete, contradictory, or wrong. That is intentional.

Lifecycle

Question
  |
  v
research
  |
  v
Investigation / experiment
  |
  v
Conclusion
  +--> knowledge          reusable knowledge capability
  +--> standards          normative engineering practice
  +--> ADR                architectural decision
  +--> project repository implementation

What belongs here

• Cross-project architectural research
• Evaluation of competing technologies or approaches
• Historical architecture archaeology
• Prototypes used to answer architectural questions
• Research into workflow, dataflow, object models, orchestration, DSLs, and similar foundations
• Questions that should not yet become standards or ADRs

What does not belong here

• Normative engineering rules: use standards.
• Stable, reusable knowledge software: use knowledge; keep private authoring material in kbase.
• Project implementation: use the relevant project repository.
• Final architectural decisions: record an ADR in the relevant project or standards repository.

Status vocabulary

• PARKED: worth revisiting, but not currently active
• ACTIVE: currently being investigated
• CONCLUDED: investigation complete; outcome documented
• PROMOTED: conclusion moved into standards, an ADR, knowledge, or implementation

Principle

Research is allowed to be wrong. Standards and ADRs are not.