**Brief look at IDEF0-5** # What is IDEF? ## History & Context Back in the 70s the United States Air Force hired a bunch of PhDs to come up with a recommended set of best practices when creating and organizing system models. This was meant to enable greater agility in collaborating on complex projects between agencies within the Department of Defense. ### Legacy Unfortunately, despite my adoration of IDEF as a family, the ONLY language that's seems to have caught even a modest amount of adoption/success is [[IDEF0]]. ## Why It's Great Models are used to represent physical objects, concepts, processes, and entire domains. Each modeling language works as a standalone system, but they also build naturally upon one-another. They are a wonderful mix of structure & flexibility. A perfect balance between high-level and high-detail. Perhaps most importantly, they are a mix of intuitive and complete. It takes no training to understand an IDEF0 Function Diagram. [[IDEF3]] Schematics can be interpreted with a cursory glance at a legend of symbols. However, despite this at-a-glance utility, they can be incredibly deep and encapsulate and present knowledge that would take years to cultivate otherwise. ### Recurring Themes - Graphics over words - Definition specificity - Unique indices & cross-referencing - Layers of complexity represented through decomposition - Consistent application techniques # IDEF0-5 Pretty well spelled out below. ![[assets/Untitled 8.png]] Note: I just realized the IDEF3 split-out is wrong. It should be an "&" and it should also include the IDEF3 version of [[State Diagrams]]. **** ## Source - [[IDEF0]] ## Related - [[Entity-Relationship Diagrams]] - [[UML]] - [[SysML]] - [[IDEF5]] - [[IDEF3]] - [[IDEF4]] - [[IDEF0]] - [[IDEF1X]] - [[Diagram Types (index)]]