[HN Gopher] Christopher Alexander has died ___________________________________________________________________ Christopher Alexander has died Author : voisin Score : 159 points Date : 2022-03-18 20:24 UTC (2 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.cnu.org) (TXT) w3m dump (www.cnu.org) | leobg wrote: | What a sad day. Never met him personally. But from what I heard | this man's influence has reached from architecture all the way to | Wikipedia and Tesla. Unthinkable how different our world today | would be if it hadn't been for his work. May he rest in peace. | And may his ideas continue to live, and mingle, and add color to | our world. | ChrisMarshallNY wrote: | He was where the concept of Design Patterns came from. | | In the early days of Design Patterns (GoF, _et al_ ), he was | often quoted. | | I purchased a couple of his books: _A Pattern Language_ [0], | and _The Timeless Way of Building_ [1]. These books were very | readable. | | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pattern_Language | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Timeless_Way_of_Building | fsloth wrote: | IMO Alexander's design pattern concept is intelligently | superior to the terms trivialization in the atrociously | highly rated GoF book. GoF enumerates the tedious patches one | needs to use on cumbersome languages like Java or C++ due to | the languages primitive nature. The main advantage of GoF | that now when you say "Factory pattern" everyone knows sort | of concept they are speaking of. | | However. | | In the scope of Alexander's work GoF patterns are of equal | complexity, as if giving names to typical architectural items | like "door" or "room". | | Alexander's work is on a higher level - discussing how to | perceive the complex totality the combination and co- | existence of such design features create. GoF book names door | a door. Alexander's book discusses how to design houses and | communities. Completely different scale. | | In software engineering terms I think the closest book that | is the best analogue to The Timeless Way of Building in terms | of discussing higher level patterns, and how to combine them, | is perhaps the classical Structure and Interpretation of | Computer programs that since it uses such an elegant | language, it can skip the tedium and start with expressing of | higher level patterns, and in the end how to combine them | into a whole complex system. | getpost wrote: | Before APL, There was _Notes on the Synthesis of Form_ in | 1964. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notes_on_the_Synthesis_of_Form | fsloth wrote: | That book is fantastic! It's absolutely thrilling design | joyride through the most surprising of concepts - and yet | it manages to send a very concrete message to designers of | all disciplines who are required to build something novel | that needs to meet real world requirements. | | Minsky, vernacular architecture, graphs, old houses, how to | design complex systems... | hcarvalhoalves wrote: | Most people know "A Pattern Language" because of the design | patterns, but it's _this_ book that every software engineer | (and everyone in the space of designing solutions) should | read. | flancian wrote: | I agree it's a great place to start; it is much shorter, | and contains stronger (or more obvious anyway) links with | mathematics, graph theory. | | We did a Christopher Alexander reading club some months | ago and took some notes as a group using hypothes.is, it | worked very nicely and anyone interested is welcome to | join in: | | https://anagora.org/go/notes-on-the-synthesis-of- | form/hypoth... | rwmj wrote: | He turns up in Stewart Brand's excellent TV programme _How | Buildings Learn_ , which is also on Youtube: | https://www.youtube.com/user/brandst | jabl wrote: | Truly an excellent and thought provoking series. | threefour wrote: | The most influential person in architecture and software whose | influence is difficult to point to. | drewda wrote: | Looks like the CNU web server is overwhelmed. I was able to read | this at | https://web.archive.org/web/20220318203326/https://www.cnu.o... | wnesensohn wrote: | I'm glad I stumbled upon his books when researching design | patterns early on in my career. His writing in 'The Timeless Way | of Building' left a big impression on me, precisely because it | didn't reduce building to a sequence of mechanical steps which | are to be followed exactly, but allowed, even called for, gaining | a deeper understanding for quality. It's hard to express, but he | did a stellar job at it. | | It's somewhat ironic that he is said to have laid the foundations | of the design patterns movement which, I don't know when, must | have taken a series of wrong turns to end up where it did. | | Thank you Mr. Alexander for writing about these fuzzy things | which dare to be named. | toyg wrote: | _> the design patterns movement which, I don 't know when, must | have taken a series of wrong turns_ | | Such is always the case, as soon as anything becomes a "school | of thought". From Christianity to patterns and agile, someone | will evangelise a set of concepts that s/he strongly believes | in, and they will be reinterpreted or exploited by others for | their own purposes. For design patterns, it was the whole | "Enterprise Java" sector who went overboard and became | doctrinaire. | cryptonector wrote: | > In 1965, Alexander wrote a much-cited essay, A City Is Not a | Tree, one of the earliest and most trenchant critiques of the | dendritic, sprawl pattern of city planning and development. | | On the other hand, all dense old-world cities (London, Paris, | Rome, even Tokyo, say) are... "dendritic". There's nothing wrong | with that, and it has everything to do with the history of the | ownership of all the bits of property on the city. | | Sprawl is a problem, but sprawl is a new world problem that has | to do with its _very_ short history. | | We've got about 500 years of old world folk moving to the new | world, but the old world has thousands of years of history. | Besides new world cities starting from much lower population | density overall than the old world already had four to five | centuries ago, there's also the fact that the last 100+ years of | that history has had personal motor vehicles in it -- that's | 1/4th to 1/5th of all the Americas' post-Columbus era, while it's | more like less than 1/20th of the old world's history. | | You can critique things like this all you like, but trying to do | away with the "dendritism" that arises naturally is... unnatural, | and requires a great deal of market distortion or use of force. | Is that really something we want? | | EDIT: Yeah, I probably read too much into that sentence! | nabla9 wrote: | The sentence you quote does not give you enough information to | make any kind of critique. It's OK to use the sentence as a | writing prompt to write what toughs it brings into your mind, | but that has little to do with the subject. Alexander's | critique is against rigid tree structure when a city should | have connections between branches. | cryptonector wrote: | That's fair. | PaulDavisThe1st wrote: | > We've got about 500 years of old world folk moving to the new | world, but the old world has thousands of years of history. | Besides new world cities starting from much lower population | density overall than the old world already had four to five | centuries ago | | Humans have lived in "the new world" for at least 24,000 years. | At the period when the first Spanish arrived in "the new | world", it seems likely that there were cities here at least as | large as anything in "the old world". By some calculations, | "the new world" may have been home for between 10% and 33% of | total human population worldwide. | | What changed the development path in "the new world" was the | arrival of "old worse" disease, which wiped out at least 80% of | the human population here (perhaps 10% of humanity), and then a | frankly genocidal process by European settlers built around | ideas such as manifest destiny that intentionally completely | ignored the millenia-old histories of human civilization here. | | It is convenient to reset the clock in 1492 (or even 1776), but | it is not honest. | Turing_Machine wrote: | > On the other hand, all dense old-world cities (London, Paris, | Rome, even Tokyo, say) are... "dendritic". | | Not in the sense of the Alexander essay. It explicitly | contrasts the interwoven connections of traditional cities with | the artificial tree-like structure of modern planned cities. | | "Tree", in the sense that Alexander uses it in that essay, is a | math tree (e.g., a binary tree in CS), not an organic tree. | | I highly recommend reading the essay for those who haven't seen | it. | stellar678 wrote: | Sprawl patterns are not caused by natural market forces. | | They are caused and enabled by land-use zoning that uses state | force to limit the use of private property, along with massive | market distortions like government-funded freeways and the | building of low-density infrastructure without a sustainable | mechanism to pay for maintenance and operation of that | infrastructure. | | But I'm also not a free-market absolutist and I'm not sure I | believe there has ever been an unencumbered free market. | Markets are just a mechanism to organize and manage a complex | system. There are always forces in place which nudge the | overall behavior in one way or another while still leaving the | market interactions to hash out the details. That's fine - we | just need to nudge things is the "right" direction. | bullfightonmars wrote: | Don't forget that the market _was_ heavily distorted in favor | of sprawl. | | Massive federal investments (subsidies) in: | | * interstates and highways that made sprawl development | possible. | | * oil infrastructure and automobiles. | | * suburban housing development designed to specifically exclude | people of color, driving disinvestment from and leading to the | collapse of cities. | | None of these are natural new-world problems nor are they | market driven, these are policy choices made. Pre vs Post WWII | cities are structured and shaped completely differently as a | result of these policies. | [deleted] | onetime865 wrote: | Probably the biggest influence of my engineering career. RIP. | exolymph wrote: | Massive PDF of A Pattern Language: | https://arl.human.cornell.edu/linked%20docs/Alexander_A_Patt... | | But I recommend owning and reading it in print. Great book to dip | in and out of at whim. | oh_sigh wrote: | Agreed - it is a great bathroom or subway book, because you can | pop into it randomly for 4 minutes and read a section, and then | go on with your day. | Bud wrote: | I treasure my copies of all of Alexander's books, but most | especially A Pattern Language. It's beautifully printed and | bound and it's a joy to come back to again and again. I'm not | an architect or urban planner; it's just that the ideas are so | compelling and beautiful. | Bieberfan2003 wrote: | Thankfully, this PDF is nowhere near complete. Check it out | from your local library. | habith wrote: | Why thankfully? What if you cannot access your local library | for a myriad of reasons? | a9h74j wrote: | I don't remember which volume it was from, but doing any | general maintenance I always remember this suggestion of his: | | _Work on the most neglected area first_ -- e.g., work on the | most neglected outdoor area of a property first. | | I don't recall his specific reasoning, but in my mind the | essence was: _Otherwise you will be acting on displacement | anxiety_ and _When an eyesore is taken care of first, your | perspective on potential other improvements will change._ | | RIP | gjvc wrote: | This is the most efficient way (IMHO) to raise the _average_ | quality of an installation / system, not to strive for a 1% | improvement in the top end (while expending 10x the effort in | doing so for said 1%, rather than the inverse). | | This is one of those rare delights; an approach which is as | powerful as it is simple. | chrisweekly wrote: | Huge loss. His thoughts on the "habitability" of software are | priceless. | karaterobot wrote: | I just buy a new copy of _A Pattern Language_ whenever I see it | in a bookstore, because I know I 'm going to end up giving it to | someone. It's one of those books you can confidently recommend to | any curious, intelligent person, and it may change their | thinking, or at least blow their mind, whether they find it | useful or not. He was such an original thinker. | [deleted] | lcuff wrote: | I wonder how many software engineers, and how many of the GoF | (Gang of Four) who wrote the software book that popularized | patterns in the software world, actually read and thought about A | Pattern Language. I'm sure some, but in my mind the subtitle | "Towns, Buildings, Construction" examines patterns that are large | in scope, medium in scope, and small in scope. One of my personal | complaints about software patterns is that there are so few that | are 'large scale'. | lukasb wrote: | Saw him speak at Berkeley around the time his book on the Eshin | project was released. Talked in very strong terms about the | importance of working in a holistic, caring way. | | A SWE in the audience spoke up, saying basically "look, we want | to follow that approach, but it's hard, we have a lot of | stakeholders to satisfy in order for a project to happen." | | Alexander was unyielding. "Once you've worked with love, you | won't want to work in any other way." | | YMMW on the practicality of his advice, but it was super | inspiring. | sloan wrote: | Thanks for the anecdote, I love it. What's SWE in this context? | Nadya wrote: | Software Engineer. | fifticon wrote: | Software Engineer I think | actually_a_dog wrote: | I wouldn't call it love _per se_ , but it certainly does take a | special kind of empathy to put yourself in the shoes of someone | using your software, and to use that perspective to make a | great product. | skeeter2020 wrote: | I have several junior developers on my team who came from the | customer success / support side of the business who grew | themselves into developer roles. They typically have not only | the strongest desire to learn & improve, but also the most | empathy and understanding of our impact on customers & their | livelihood. | kbelder wrote: | Yes! If you can get somebody on your team that has worked | their way up from, for example, a customer service contact | center, they'll be immensely valuable. Just their insight | on what customers love and hate about your product is | probably worth their hire. | agumonkey wrote: | I think it's a long term obvious win. If you care larger, you | avoid painting yourself in corners. See what really needs to | be done, do just that and enjoy the harmony. | wolverine876 wrote: | Without knowing Alexander's concept in detail, once I learned | to work (and live) that way, doing otherwise has seemed like a | waste of time, almost pointless. The only point is that, | unfortunately, many people don't understand - and scoff at - | working 'with love', but in those cases I often feel like I'm | mostly building a road to nowhere. | xLaszlo wrote: | This video of him from 1996 is amazing with hindsight. A must | watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98LdFA-_zfA | | RIP Christopher Alexander | pmoriarty wrote: | This is very interesting, but his main concerns (the creation | of what he calls "living structures", "nurturing structures", | and things that make people "feel whole") seem to be completely | and utterly divorced from what people in the computer field are | interested in. | gjvc wrote: | OOPSLA talks of that era were fantastic. Alan Kay has often | paid tribute to Christopher Alexander in his talks and I cannot | resist mentioning this from Alan from the following year | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKg1hTOQXoY | nabla9 wrote: | I suggest that anyone interested in his work reads part I of "The | Patterns of Software" by Richard Gabriel. | https://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/PatternsOfSoftware.pdf | | In my opinion, Gabriel has a better and deeper understanding of | Christopher Alexander's pattern language and how it can be | applied to software than the whole Software Pattern movement | which created a very different interpretation of patterns. | shoo wrote: | > There is a central quality which is the root criterion of life | and spirit in a man, a town, a building, or a wilderness. This | quality is objective and precise, but it cannot be named. [...] | It is not only simpler beauty of form and color. Man can make | that without making nature. It is not only fitness to purpose. | Man can make that too, without making nature. And it is not only | the spiritual quality of beautiful music or of a quiet mosque, | that comes from faith. Man can make that too, without making | nature. | | > The quality which has no name includes these simpler sweeter | qualities. But it is so ordinary as well, that it somehow reminds | us of the passing of our life. | | > It is a slightly bitter quality. | | - Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building | nemo1618 wrote: | Sounds like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_no_aware | | > The awareness of impermanence, or transience of things, and | both a transient gentle sadness (or wistfulness) at their | passing as well as a longer, deeper gentle sadness about this | state being the reality of life. | dr_dshiv wrote: | He had really interesting computational ideas about harmony. From | _The Nature of Order_ (2002) "As architects, builders, and | artists, we are called upon constantly--every moment of the | working day--to make judgments about relative harmony. We are | constantly trying to make decisions about what is better and what | is worse..." | | Following this, he published a paper on "harmony-seeking | computation" as an approach to optimize "wholeness." He | identified 15 elements of wholeness in designs that might be | measured, like the presence of coherent centers, strong | boundaries, local symmetries or roughness/imperfection. He | proposes that "the harmony that is sought in these computations | is indeed what we otherwise call 'beauty'. But the result of | harmony-seeking computations are not merely pretty or artistic. | In most cases, they are also better functionally and | technically." | | Alexander, Christopher "Harmony-Seeking Computations." | _International Journal of Unconventional Computing_ 4 (2008). | Bieberfan2003 wrote: | Meh. The whole "wholeness" and "structure-preserving | transformations" thing just sounded to me like he was | describing a literal cell division algorithm. He even gave cell | division as an example of structured behavior rules producing | wholeness out of chaos. | Isomorpheus wrote: | Fascinating. Saw a paper pop up on one of my Semantic Scholar | feeds just the other day with the title "Symmetry and | simplicity spontaneously emerge from the algorithmic nature of | evolution". Here's the link | https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.28.454038v2 | mezod wrote: | Wow :( Precisely yesterday I was reading some reviews on some of | his books on architecture... does anyone care to recommend one? | mercutio2 wrote: | A Pattern Language is incredibly good. | | His core ideas have been riffed on so much since then that it | won't read as an original idea anymore, but it's still a great | read if you're interested in thinking about how communities and | building and people work. | sloan wrote: | The Timeless Way of Building is great | rongenre wrote: | I took a class in cognitive psych decades ago, and one of the | highlights was going over 'A Pattern Language' and 'A Timeless | way of Building'. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-03-18 23:00 UTC)