Object Identity. Framework for deciding Identity scope

Let us now enrich each of these objects by describing them a little bit more.  The way to describe an object is to identify and list out its attributes.

Let us start from our first object – the Person object.

A Person has a unique identity. Therefore for any Person (Provider or borrower) we should be able to uniquely identify him/her.  The person will have to have a set of attributes for this purpose and these can be collectively called “Identification” attributes.  It is reasonable to assume that one would need to communicate with the person and hence the object should also reveal the details that would permit effective communication to occur.

The Person object’s identity will then look as follows

(1)         Person

a.    Unique Identification

b.    Communication identifiers

Intuitively we all know that the object Person will have more identity elements that describe him/her such as his relationship quality with the bank, the degree of trust that a bank can place in him and so on and so forth. Each of the identity element provides a capability to the system.  Therefore the best way to flesh out the identity of an object is to start with a basic system and then progressively demand more capability of the system. Then in response to that demand add identity and behavior elements that help provide the capability.  

Hence before proceeding any further, it is appropriate that we state the basic capability that is being sought from the object model being developed in this section. This capability requirement provides a scope to our object model. In other words this capability requirement provides a basis for developing the objects in the object model. 

Once the basic object model has been developed, we would then progressively demand higher capabilities of the system. For each such demand we would incrementally add to the object model to deliver that capability

For each capability we would also enunciate the roles that each object would be expected to perform in order that the system can deliver the capability expected of it. The role definition are an essential intermediate step to developing the object identity and behavior.

This would be the approach that we will use to design our core banking system.