Why is it called 'business logic'? Where did this term come from? [closed]

Answer 1

I think nmr is quite correct. I'm teaching my HCI software engineering course, and I need to encourage students to stop thinking of "Business Logic" and think more about MVC.

Quite often, their previous professors would tell them that, "Underneath the HCI is the BIDness Logic"

Can we please LOSE the business logic? Since software rarely has NO user interface, we can say, for the rest of the software, there is the View, the user Control, and the Model.

And there will be message passing between these three entities. Which are, by the way, "output", "input"/"state". Just as Turing (and Church) had taught us.

So... let's lose 'the bidness logic'

Answer 2

You could have called it "core logic", but I believe that the first (well-known) multi-tiered apps were actually written for insurance or banking, hence the term "business logic". From there, the pattern took form, and the naming stuck.

Had the first multi-tiered apps been a research project or something, it probably would have been called "core logic".

Answer 3

Just like the pretty you goes to the bathroom to do your business, your pretty GUI goes to the logic to do its business..

(Sorry, couldn't resist :) )

Answer 4

I think I agree with DVK - IIRC, at the time, the whole Data->Logic->Presentation layer thing was an "enterprise" (basically: business) software buzzword.

Now that every goddamn web page should be three-tiered, it's much more common.

You also have to remember that while there's a lot of code other than business code, the amount of business code is huge, and a huge business (har har) as well. It's not really surprising that some terms originated there.

Answer 5

If you were a professional graphic designer, there certainly would be business involved with using your imaging application - your job is your business!

So "business logic" refers to the parts of the code that define how the user conducts his business (in this case, manipulating images).

Don't forget that back in the day, all software was "business software" - no-one could afford the expensive equipment and skills required to write software for anything other than business purposes. It if didn't make money or save money for a business, it didn't get written.

Answer 6

Business logic is that part of an application where "how" is should work is determined by someone other than the programming team. Usually it is the code that does what the customer wants to get done. The term generally only applies to in house software built for a non-IT group.