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An interesting (and free) book about the subject is "The Idea of the Labyrinth from Classical Antiquity through the Middle Ages" by Penelope Reed Doob https://w

An interesting (and free) book about the subject is "The Idea of the Labyrinth from Classical Antiquity through the Middle Ages" by Penelope Reed Doob https://www.amazon.com/Labyrinth-Classical-Antiquity-through-Middle-ebook/dp/B07SW7SNSQ/ https://www.amazon.com/Labyrinth-Classical-Antiquity-through... Sometimes it goes too far in seeing a "labyrinthine aesthetic" everywhere, but nevertheless it contains interesting information. Speaking of labyrinths, programmers are like Daedalus: they design labyrinths, only to be immured inside them. Daedalus was commissioned to build an actual labyrinth; programmers set out to build cathedrals, but then mess up. They keep reworking sections of the labyrinth even as they are lost inside, trying to straighten out the paths, render them comprehensible. But they always end up creating more twists and turns.

throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
> programmers are like Daedalus... they always end up creating more twists and turns Doesn't sound like what a programmer would say. No decent dev I have ever met would do any but untangle the mess[0], and given any capacity, would not create one in the first place. [0] References to theseus need not apply.
- zentiggr 6y ago
  Well... even knowing I signed on to a project in 'sustainment' mode, I've still looked at and written up some ways to reduce the friction and complication of working with the old codebase. Even though the effort is unlikely to be put in, since the new version is in progress already.
pier25 6y ago
Love your metaphor about Daedalus but labyrinths have a single path compared to mazes which have multiple branching paths.
- danidiaz 6y ago
  In Antiquity and the Middle Ages, there was something of an incongruence between literary and visual depictions of labyrinths ("The Idea of the Labyrinth" touches on this). In literary sources, the labyrinths were often "multicursal", like mazes. One can choose a wrong turn and get lost. The labyrinth at Crete is described like that. But graphical depictions are almost invariably "unicursal" for some reason. From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labyrinth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labyrinth "Although early Cretan coins occasionally exhibit branching (multicursal) patterns,[2] the single-path (unicursal) seven-course "Classical" design without branching or dead ends became associated with the Labyrinth on coins as early as 430 BC,[3] and similar non-branching patterns became widely used as visual representations of the Labyrinth – even though both logic and literary descriptions make it clear that the Minotaur was trapped in a complex branching maze." If the cretan Labyrinth didn't have branching paths, why would Theseus need a ball of thread to retrace his steps? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariadne#Minos_and_Theseus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariadne#Minos_and_Theseus
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throwaway_pdp09 6y ago

> programmers are like Daedalus... they always end up creating more twists and turns Doesn't sound like what a programmer would say. No decent dev I have ever met would do any but untangle the mess[0], and given any capacity, would not create one in the first place. [0] References to theseus need not apply.

zentiggr 6y ago
Well... even knowing I signed on to a project in 'sustainment' mode, I've still looked at and written up some ways to reduce the friction and complication of working with the old codebase. Even though the effort is unlikely to be put in, since the new version is in progress already.

pier25 6y ago

Love your metaphor about Daedalus but labyrinths have a single path compared to mazes which have multiple branching paths.

danidiaz 6y ago
In Antiquity and the Middle Ages, there was something of an incongruence between literary and visual depictions of labyrinths ("The Idea of the Labyrinth" touches on this). In literary sources, the labyrinths were often "multicursal", like mazes. One can choose a wrong turn and get lost. The labyrinth at Crete is described like that. But graphical depictions are almost invariably "unicursal" for some reason. From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labyrinth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labyrinth "Although early Cretan coins occasionally exhibit branching (multicursal) patterns,[2] the single-path (unicursal) seven-course "Classical" design without branching or dead ends became associated with the Labyrinth on coins as early as 430 BC,[3] and similar non-branching patterns became widely used as visual representations of the Labyrinth – even though both logic and literary descriptions make it clear that the Minotaur was trapped in a complex branching maze." If the cretan Labyrinth didn't have branching paths, why would Theseus need a ball of thread to retrace his steps? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariadne#Minos_and_Theseus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariadne#Minos_and_Theseus

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