Re: ::scr Re: Cognitive Friction

[jo walsh <jo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> > the followers of the "Design Patterns" people have misused his gist much
> > worse than i hope i ever could. 
> 
> I'm not entirely sure that misused is the right word. However, as RP
> Gabriel points out in _Patterns of Software_ (a fine book which I
> recommend highly), when Alexander tried to apply his Pattern Language
> in real life, it failed. It didn't fail badly, but the buildings that
> resulted did not have The Quality Without a Name, so it shouldn't be
> all that surprising if a system of building programs based on those
> ideas should fail too.

to re-state the problem in alexander's words it is the "system"-ness, the
methodology that i think is a corruption of the gist. not really in the
minds of the "Design Patterns" authors, but in those i've met or heard of
who slavishly apply the patterns without question, who spend their time
looking for them so as to cry "ha - here is an Observer, here is a
Decorator", who become so hung up on the learned images they don't
contemplate the context of the problem. i don't mean to be setting out to
irritate hordes of people by saying this, nor do i mean to deny the
validity of the methodology, just to suggest a congruence between apparent
misuse and apparent failure ;) 

last time i was in california i tried to drag my hosts on a day trip to
see the hospital/asylum alexander built in modesto. i was looked at
strangely - "jo, this is the equivalent of an american coming to visit you
in london and saying, 'i'm dying to see this place you call Reading'".
maybe next time.

to the argument that many of alexander's actual buildings have been
conceptual failures, i'd argue that a conception that fantastic, at once
so hard and simple, is difficult for one man to realise completely, and
that in the timeless way sense, nothing can stand alone -
the surrounding transport, buildings, the quality of material and water
and electricity supplies, the engagement or not of the local community,
all help make or undermine that quality without a name.     

a lot of idealism, a feeling of looking at a world like Banks's Culture or
even one much closer, loss of intellectual "property", thinking "i can see
how that coheres, could be reachable, but i can't see how the fuck we get
there from here." 

> Alexander contributes a foreward to Gabriel's
> book in which he questions the validity of drawing parallels between
> buildings and programs in the first place. Definitely a fascinating
> book.

i didnt know how to program when i read it, so the bits about turkish rugs
struck me the hardest :) i don't think there's any harm in drawing
interesting parallels, even if they're necessarily incomplete, just to
learn more out of the divergence and convergence. i think there are
parallels in all acts of design and making. but yes, maybe there is a
danger of misuse, or being misled by synchrony of words.

> I note that Alexander's 'The Nature of Order' is due out in February

it costs $lots doesnt it :/ i can't wait, though.

> > you planning to throw one away? :)
> Umm... it was just a comment on the Perl 6 process.

perl is dead! long live perl!

cheers

z