[HN Gopher] Beautiful Software: Christopher Alexander's research... ___________________________________________________________________ Beautiful Software: Christopher Alexander's research initiative on computing Author : herbertl Score : 109 points Date : 2022-12-16 06:53 UTC (16 hours ago) (HTM) web link (beautiful.software) (TXT) w3m dump (beautiful.software) | AlbertCory wrote: | Is it possible to sympathize and agree with everything he says, | and yet find the writing insufferably pompous? Because that's | where I'm at with The Timeless Way of Building. | | I didn't get that in watching him: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98LdFA-_zfA | | I was picturing someone like Dan Akroyd on SNL as Leonard Pinth | Garnell and "Bad Ballet." | simonsarris wrote: | I've recommended his book a lot but I also find the writing | itself to be poor. He's very much trying to write like its some | (specifically Taoist) mystic text but it comes off as quite | cheesy. | davidivadavid wrote: | I don't disagree that this was a risky bet, and yet now I | can't imagine the book being written any other way. | AlbertCory wrote: | Oh, I can: | | https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1703957/ | | Thomas Wolfe brought Maxwell Perkins a "book" of over 2,000 | pages, and he was still writing furiously. Perkins still | said "we mean to publish this" and brought it down to a | manageable length. | | Alexander just needs some tough love. | lolinder wrote: | I recently rewatched his address to OOPSLA[0] and it was funny to | see him trying to avoid coming straight out and saying "you guys | completely misunderstood the point of my work!" He tried to allow | for the possibility that he was just misunderstanding, but it was | pretty obvious that he knew that the Gang of Four style patterns | movement took the surface level organization from his work and | completely ignored the moral and ethical _point_ of it all. | | Glad to see he didn't leave off with that! We could do with more | software people studying his _actual_ work, which was building | humane, living spaces that make people whole. | | [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98LdFA-_zfA | mindcrime wrote: | _We could do with more software people studying his actual | work, which was building humane, living spaces that make people | whole._ | | It's funny, I just ordered copies of _The Timeless Way of | Building_ , _A Pattern Language_ and _Notes on the Synthesis of | Form_ earlier this year, intending to start a deep dive into | Alexander 's work. This is something I've been wanting to do | for some time, and kinda regret that it's taken me this long to | even get as far as ordering the books. Now to find time to dig | into them... | | _sigh_ So much to learn, so little time. :-( | eternalban wrote: | I don't think GoF got it wrong. The foundational essence of the | approach that maps to software is there. What is wrongheaded is | to expect a one-to-one mapping between two entirely distinct | subject matters. | | CA's architectural approach, stripped of the new age verbiage, | is reducible to bottom-up, local action, global effect. There | are local conditions with recipes, and patterns of | binding/connecting. Together with Frank Lloyd Wright, these two | gents have mapped out two distinct approaches to what Wright | called _Organic Architecture_. (Wright following Sullivan used | a 'generative system', the famous seed-germ [1], to _order_ | and create space.) Both men are pretty big on Beauty, but only | one actually delivered beautiful works. Alexander 's approach | remains a theoretical proposition, unlike Frank Lloyd Wright's | generative order approach (which he regrettably did not fully | disclose to his proteges.) | | And having skimmed the post and the core program course, it is | clear these folk don't actually understand software, or | anything that is worthy of the name 'Beauty' in software. | | _" It is a view of programming as the natural genetic | infrastructure of a living world which you/we are capable of | creating, managing, making available, and which could then have | the result that a living structure in our towns, houses, work | places, cities, becomes an attainable thing. | | That would be remarkable. It would turn the world around, and | make living structure the norm once again, throughout society, | and make the world worth living in again." -- Christopher | Alexander_ | | I'm quite happy to have someone like Alan Kay pontificate on | aesthetics of software, but Christopher Alexander is not | remotely qualified. | | [1]: https://www.archpaper.com/2010/11/remembering-louis- | sullivan... | TheOtherHobbes wrote: | I expect CA was as surprised as anyone when the GoF cargo- | culted his ideas into OO software development. | | So far as I'm aware he never claimed any particular expertise | or experience in software in any of the original books. | | The equivalent would be architects taking the design | principles of Multics and using them to lay out buildings. | | That would be a bizarre thing to do. And it's no less bizarre | in the other direction. | | What seems to have happened in practice is that the GoF used | CA's work to give their own ideas about patterns in OO | software development more credibility than it would have had | otherwise. | | It's not that the idea of OO patterns is inherently bad. But | pretending that it's somehow genuinely based on some | speculations about built architecture is neither convincing | nor credible. | | Having said that - the CA quote above makes perfect sense, | and it is about beautiful software _from the end user 's | POV._ | | Which is a view that's often missing from CS and developer | culture in general. Typically there's more effort put into | forcing humans to act in bureaucratic, corporate, and | computer-constrained ways, than in forcing computers to | behave in ways that are inclusive, accessible, ecologically | stable and robust, and organically open-ended. | eternalban wrote: | I suppose we can ask GoF authors if they needed credibility | boost from an obscure (certainly in CS circles) architect. | | The quote does not make any coherent sense, it's a | _sentiment_ decorated with buzzwords. As I said, if Alan | Kay wants to hand wave CS utopia, heck, the man has | certainly earned it, and his woowoo talk is actually | intellectually far more densely packed and nutritious. | | Btw, I said nothing about patterns, OO, good, or bad. We | also disagree about portability of concepts and viewpoints | across disciplines. I studied architecture in grad school | and engineering before that. And learning C/S via | vocational route I found my EE and architecture background | was beneficial and definitely informed my architectural | thinking in software. I merely said you can not have a one- | to-one mapping. Here an example: modular thinking -> | engineering, architecture, software. But "Pattern Language" | on its own is not fully informative of _conceptual_ | concerns of software architecture. That was the point. | auggierose wrote: | Fantastic talk, never came across this before. He is great at | putting into words already back then what now has become quite | apparent is missing in our current approach. I've never seen it | formulated so clearly. I am not trying to do it here, so you | better go and watch the talk. | cproctor wrote: | Can anyone who has read Alexander's work recommend one of his | books to start with, which focuses on the core moral and | ethical views, while being most relevant to CS? For context, I | work in k12 computing education, designing new kinds of | computing experiences for children. | ethanbond wrote: | IMO A Pattern Language really hits the moral and ethical | component very well though the format is a bit odd. Notes on | the Synthesis of Form is potentially more pragmatically | useful to someone working in software. | | His wife and some of his proteges teach a program called | Building Beauty that forwards his thinking in architecture | and I know that they use The Nature of Order. I haven't read | it yet but I suspect there's good reason they use that one as | the basis of their program. | trgn wrote: | The format is odd indeed. In retrospect, it's really bold | to basically build their thesis by example (although | pattern language could be considered as a complement to | their timeless way of building volume, like a plates volume | of an art history publication). | | The great part is not the details of the actual patterns, | sometimes they just seem plain wrong (e.g. guidelines for | roof massing is what mcmansioms are doing today). The power | of the book really is the edifice they create, the making | real and making concrete of the harmony between large and | small scale, something which is generally only felt. Crazy | ambitious. | | The moral dimension is not made explicit, and in hindsight, | it seems to be injected really subversively. An example: | the key indicator of a healthy public realm is one where | people feel comfortable taking a nap. It seems somewhat | quaint, but then look around outside. Are the people | sleeping deviants, or are they kindly old folk taking a | quick little doze after feeding the ducks at the pond? | Other examples about independent mobility for children | etc.. | | It's frightening how we debased our commons, made it | intolerable, and inflict it on our poorest and most | vulnerable. | | Pattern language reveals this not by rhetoric, but rather a | slow stacking of example after example. It's easy to miss | if you consult the book as a reference manual, rather than | read it as a polemic. | modernerd wrote: | Building Beauty was new to me, thank you for the mention: | https://www.buildingbeauty.org/beautiful-software | harrylove wrote: | I think _The Nature of Order vol. 1: The Phenomenon of Life_ | is what you're looking for. Going back in time, _The Timeless | Way of Building_ and _A Pattern Language_ show the roots of | The Nature of Order series. To look at a recent case study, | _The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth._ | | I also recommend looking at works by Salingaros and Mehaffy | like _Design for a Living Planet_ , _Principles of Urban | Structure_ , and _Unified Architecture Theory_. | cc101 wrote: | You may find that pages ix through xv of The Timeless Way of | Building will give you a deep, useful, and quick | introduction. | twic wrote: | A Pattern Language is the second half of a single work, of | which The Timeless Way of Building is the first. From the | introduction to A Pattern Language: | | > Volume 1, The Timeless Way of Building, and Volume 2, A | Pattern Language, are two halves of a single work. This book | provides a language, for building and planning; the other | book provides the theory and instructions for the use of the | language. This book describes the detailed patterns for towns | and neighborhoods, houses, gardens, and rooms. The other book | explains the discipline which makes it possible to use these | patterns to create a building or a town. This book is the | sourcebook of the timeless way; the other is its practice and | its origin. | | > The two books have evolved very much in parallel. They have | been growing over the last eight years, as we have worked on | the one hand to understand the nature of the building | process, and on the other hand to construct an actual, | possible pattern language. We have been forced by practical | considerations, to publish these two books under separate | covers; but in fact, they form an indivisible whole. It is | possible to read them separately. But to gain the insight | which we have tried to communicate in them, it is essential | that you read them both. | | The former book expounds the ideas. But it is a weird pile of | ideas. Somewhat moral and ethical, also somewhat practical, | and also rather mystical. The combination has a religious | feel. | | The Oregon Experiment is a sort of prequel to The Timeless | Way of Building and A Pattern Language. It's an account of | the development and application of those ideas to building | projects at the University of Oregon. It might be the most | approachable explanation of the ideas. It has the | considerable advantage of being a ninth the length of the | other two combined. | ghr wrote: | +1 to The Oregon Experiment. It was the first I read and I | think gave a great taste of a lot of the ideas in a way | that was reasonably understandable. I wrote up some notes | at https://www.garethrees.co.uk/2020/03/08/book-notes-the- | orego... | carapace wrote: | It sounds like you might want to read "Battle for the Life | and Beauty of the Earth". | | If you want to go deep his _magnus opus_ is "Nature of | Order". It's transcendent. | tylershuster wrote: | The Timeless Way of Building | rurban wrote: | Definitely not recommended, only for hardcore anti- | modernists. (ie reactionaries) | tylershuster wrote: | Well, that's just like, your opinion, man. I think it | lays out a pretty succinct overview of the ethics | involved in building any system in a wholistic manner. He | changed his statements later to say that "the quality | without a name" is, in fact, wholeness. | bmc7505 wrote: | SPLASH had another keynote on pattern languages this year. The | analogy from architecture to programming languages seemed | strained at best - the speaker spent most of the talk on social | programming, i.e., programming humans how to act in certain | social situations and making design concepts more explicit and | user-friendly. He made a big fuss about what a successful | consultancy he built around running workshops and distributing | baseball cards with different patterns printed on them. I found | the whole thing self-aggrandizing and borderline charlatanry | for an academic PL conference. | TedHerman wrote: | It's high time software designers claimed competency in | architecture. For example, what is your take on these? | https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/architectural-community... | justincormack wrote: | This post by Dorian Taylor on Christopher Alexander is a good | introduction I found https://dorian.substack.com/p/at-any-given- | moment-in-a-proce... | [deleted] | dimal wrote: | I've been reading "Notes on the Synthesis of Form" recently after | seeing it mentioned in an Alan Kay talk. I had never heard of it | before. Such an incredible book. Such an elegant argument showing | how tightly coupled systems are inherently unstable. I wish I had | read it twenty years ago. Made me wonder how much of the idea of | structured programming was inspired by it. | ghr wrote: | In 2020-2021 I participated in the Building Beauty Online course | (the architecture side) and the Beautiful Software seminar. I | wrote up as much as I could: | | https://www.garethrees.co.uk/building-beauty/ | swlkr wrote: | I agree with huge buildings causing a stress response and modern | architecture being generally ugly. | | The nicest looking places are smaller in scope with buildings | around 4-5 stories, densely packed together which also makes them | walkable. | | Look at places like hillsboro oregon right by orenco station or | delft south holland, these places are what I understand to be | closer to human scale. | eps wrote: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Alexander | twic wrote: | > Notes For 'Notes On "Notes"' | | Classic rpg. | harrylove wrote: | Looks interesting. Doesn't explicitly state up front, but this is | the resource page for the Beautiful Software seminar. | https://www.buildingbeauty.org/beautiful-software ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-12-16 23:00 UTC)