Introduction

What is a pragmatic ?

The word ‘pragmatic’ is derived from the Latin word ‘pragmaticus’, which means ‘skilled in business’, and which itself is derived from the Greek ‘to do’.

We can think of pragmatics as confirmed practical rules that should be applied whenever possible.

Why pragmatics ?

Striving for perfection is a natural and human desire. We feel that something is perfect if there are no faults, no inconveniences, no limitations. Everything is exactly as we wish it to be. When speaking about products (goods), 3 properties are generally considered to determine the degree of perfection:

• quality
• functionality
• price

A perfect product would be of highest quality, without any missing functionality and free of charge. It is not easy to find examples of real perfection. The best one coming to my mind is: oxygen. Oxygen is perfectly suited for our bodies (when not polluted by humans), available nearly everywhere (worldwide, up to altitudes of about 4000 meters), unlimited in quantity and time as well as free of charge for everyone. Nobody ever complained about oxygen.

Unfortunately most products constructed by imperfect humans are inherently imperfect, especially in the world of complex technologies like software. In these cases we consider a fourth property:

• support

Simply said, the amount of needed support is inversely proportional to the degree of perfection. If a product is perfect then we don't need any support, as in the case of oxygen. Analogously a lot of support is always a sign for imperfection. Translated to the world of software we deduce (as we all know already) that most software is far away from perfection.

Pragmatics can be particularly helpful for achieving the highest possible degree of perfection. A pragmatic is a rule that has been established as a result of past experiences and whose truth has been confirmed in practice. Pragmatics should be general, easy to understand, and applicable by everyone. At every step the developer should ask himself:

Do I respect all pragmatics?

Unfortunately, applying pragmatics isn't always easy. Most of the time a lot of discipline and effort is necessary. Limits may exist due to the chosen technology and available resources. Sometimes it is even impossible to apply a given pragmatic to every situation (examples will follow). As a consequence compromises must be made occasionally in order to balance human effort, needed resources and usefulness. But anyway, the existence of pragmatics and their consistent appliance whenever possible can considerably increase a product's success.

The following chapters present pragmatics that had been defined before starting the development of Obix. Thus they represent some fundamental ideas and principles which are always applied as far as possible. They are classified by quality, functionality, price and support.