Thinging vs Objectfying in Software Engineering
This work addresses software engineers by offering an incremental reconceptualization of modeling paradigms, with possible extensions to object-oriented notation and understanding.
The paper tackles the problem of software system modeling by proposing a thing-oriented methodology as an alternative to object-oriented approaches, recasting examples to show potential for supplementing or enhancing object orientation.
In this paper, we propose the use of a modeling methodology based on the notion of thing, with a focus on the current stage of research being on the analysis phase of software system modeling. The object-oriented approach, which takes the object as a central concept, provides the opportunity to explore applying thinging to the reconceptualization of objects. Several object-oriented examples are recast in terms of thing-oriented modeling. The results indicate a positive development that leads to several possible options: (1) supplementing the object orientation (OO) paradigm with additional notations, and (2) promoting a further understanding of some aspect of the OO paradigm. The possibility of developing a new approach in modeling based on thinging also exists.