He missed that Notes on the Synthesis of Form inspired the software design perspectives of coupling and cohesion
source?
Some Notes on Christopher Alexander (2008)
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Re: Some Notes on Christopher Alexander (2008)
#12Recently I had to think about Alexander when I saw the empty streets of New York. Without people you will notice much more how the buildings overwhelm and cast shadow everywhere.
This is exactly what Alexander was fighting against: building structures that go against human nature.
I read a couple of his books and saw some of his talks. It sometimes makes me a little sad to see through his eyes how we are building today.
Re: Some Notes on Christopher Alexander (2008)
#13Recently I had to think about Alexander when I saw the empty streets of New York. Without people you will notice much more how the buildings overwhelm and cast shadow everywhere. This is exactly what Alexander was fighting against: building structures that go against human nature. I read a couple of his books and saw some of his talks. It sometimes makes me a little sad to see through his eyes how we are building tod…
Shadows aren't bad. They're the best thing that can happen during summer. Well... Them and the wind.
Re: Some Notes on Christopher Alexander (2008)
#14I just read A City is not a Tree, linked somewhere here ( http://www.patternlanguage.com/archives/alexander1.htm ) and found it quite interesting.
Santa Fe Institute has a podcast on complex systems. There's a chapter on cities that might be interesting if you liked 'A City is not a Tree': https://complexity.simplecast.com/episodes/4 .
Re: Some Notes on Christopher Alexander (2008)
#15He missed that Notes on the Synthesis of Form inspired the software design perspectives of coupling and cohesion
source?
They may be referring to the mention on C2.
----- (https://wiki.c2.com/?NotesOnTheSynthesisOfForm)
I'm struck by the resemblance between the rule of CouplingAndCohesion and Alexander's formal treatment of the "main" problem of design - hierarchical decomposition of the set M of misfit variables (the "things which might possibly break") into subsets which
maximize the connections between their components (high cohesion) but also
are minimally connected with each other (low coupling)
Re: Some Notes on Christopher Alexander (2008)
#16I'd recommend Thriving System Theory by Leslie J. Waguespack that integrates Alexander's Ideas across the development of systems. - https://amzn.to/3bdoSxA
I also wrote a book where I took a number of Alexander's ideas and applied them to creating a crypto based economic system. - https://amzn.to/2RGhfIf - Probably not interesting unless you are really into crypto or really into pattern languages.
I was in Berkeley a couple of years ago and went on a bit of a pilgrimage up the hill to find some of the house that he designed. I ended up running into some of his family and felt like an ass for invading their privacy(I had no idea they still lived in one of the houses), but was able to speak with one of his daughters and he was apparently not doing so well back then. Every time I see his stuff come up on here I worry that it is bad news.
Re: Some Notes on Christopher Alexander (2008)
#17Alexander’s books have been on my bucket list for a while. He is one of the few thinkers bridging between traditional and modern, and designing lived experience. It is no accident his work extends beyond building design and into human user experience and software architecture.
Don't wait. The timeless way of building can be finished in an afternoon and is worth your time.
Re: Some Notes on Christopher Alexander (2008)
#18Alexander’s books have been on my bucket list for a while. He is one of the few thinkers bridging between traditional and modern, and designing lived experience. It is no accident his work extends beyond building design and into human user experience and software architecture.
Don't wait. The timeless way of building can be finished in an afternoon and is worth your time.
Thanks for the encouragement.
I was also eying his other books because I realized that the principles of those design also extends to society, community, and governance. Meaning, with the right living architecture, we can have permissionless community, a lot of similarities to the "Te" chapters of the Tao Te Ching.
I know one of the things that keep coming up is how can one balance between global and local concerns. Our society is coming apart at the seams with a culture war, and the pandemic highlights that tension between global and local. Everything I have read about Alexander's work suggests that he cracked open a way to pull that off.
Re: Some Notes on Christopher Alexander (2008)
#19He missed that Notes on the Synthesis of Form inspired the software design perspectives of coupling and cohesion
source?
An article in Ieee's Software taht included a reflection by Constantine on where he was inspired (by reading Notes on...)
I appear to have thrown the article away. But it was 2012+/-5 years.