[net.arch] Top-down vs. Bottom-up

williams@kirk.dec.com (John Williams 223-3402) (07/22/86)

The design process is actually both. The top and the bottom represent
the limits of the designer's knowledge, and are given a priori to the
design. The designer then works towards the middle to some form of
representative block diagram. This allows two things to happen:

1) System functionality is defined, and a design can be evaluated
from an environmental standpoint.

2) Primitive components are selected by virtue of their quality, choosing
the best components for the best design.

						John.