About Robvhaarst

Apart from everything else, Conceptual Heaven is a portfolio for Rob van Haarst. With a degree in general linguistics, Rob has 20+ years of experience in business modelling for software development, analyzing project requirements, creating or customizing the actual software, and building supporting tools. He has specialized in natural-language specifications and model-driven development.

From his Blog

  • WELCOMING SBVR 1.4

    A new version 1.4 of SBVR was published by Object Management Group in May 2017 after 2 years of work and debate. You can download it from http://www.omg.org/spec/SBVR/ (free download and you don’t need to register). How is SBVR 1.4 different from previous versions of […]

  • IS OR EVER NEEDED?

    The tip: “Don’t mix your ANDs and ORs” has been a staple of programming tutorials for decades now, and it’s still as relevant as ever. It also applies to writers of natural language. Here is an example of that fatal […]

  • NEXT STOP: INTERCHANGING DMN WITH SBVR

    DMN and SBVR can be used to specify the same kind of business logic. This post compares the two, looking at strenghths and weaknesses of each. It was inspired by Nick Broom’s excellent Nov 2014 comparison of DMN (OMG’s Decision Model and […]

  • A, Each, Every, All, or Any?

    Rule authors are faced with the choice between a, each, every, all, and any, just about every time they write a new business rule in English. This is tiresome and it makes it hard for them to be consistent. A business rule tells you […]

  • INTERVIEW WITH SILVIE SPREEUWENBERG

    An interview by Silvie Spreeuwenberg with myself on the book advertised on this site can be found at http://www.BRCommunity.com/a2014/b747.html (free access but you need to create a password), one of the most important forums on business rules and (more recently […]

  • PROCESS RULES

    There was a time when process modellers didn’t “do” business rules. They made process flow diagrams. The only thing that really mattered was “processes”. The assumption was that any rule important enough for a process would surface in the process […]

  • IT´S A DOCUMENT WORLD

    Business rules analysis invites you to state facts about a business in concise language sentences. Each of those statements expresses a single point of truth. This has a technical reason. It’s because of the way business rules are rooted in […]

  • REQUIREMENTS AND BUSINESS RULES

    Are requirements and business rules the same thing? Unfortunately, no. But it’s a good question: many people get interested in business rules because they are in the requirements phase of a software project, and they wonder if business rules could […]