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> it's about lives and how people fit together more than how bricks fit together That's a great way of putting it! > Le Corbusier, for example, deriving syste

> it's about lives and how people fit together more than how bricks fit together That's a great way of putting it! > Le Corbusier, for example, deriving systems for living and modular approaches to constructing space I agree the comparison is apt, but I much prefer Alexander's humane, bottom-up, anarchistic approach than Le Corbusier's authoritarian high modernism. Reading The Oregon Experiment is great context for A Pattern Language, seeing the way they envisioned the pattern language being used by a community. And the kinds of organisation they needed to couch it in, the way they needed to change the budgeting process to enable many more smaller projects, the way they co-opted staff and students into planning groups rather than have a siloed professional office. But, sadly it doesn't seem like this approach has been influential. I can't think of many other places that work this way! So while I do also wish more software people had read and appreciated this work, I don't think it's the immaturity of the software industry that prevents us from appreciating these ideas. In the introduction to A Pattern Language, the authors write "towns and buildings will not be able to come alive, unless they are made by all the people in society". I wonder if this is also true of software.

kolektiv 2y ago
I agree entirely on Le Corbusier, while I love the eventual outcome of his work in many senses (aesthetically certainly), his approach to actual people was (as you say) far less humane than Alexander. Alexander I think saw himself as a part of "the people" - from what I know of Le Corbusier, I don't imagine he did. I've not yet read The Oregon Experiment (it's in one of the waiting piles) but I've skimmed it. Funnily enough, the comparison you make around changing budgeting processes to enable smaller projects, having users working as part of planning, etc. reminds me of some of the original intents of agile before it was co-opted. For agile to work it couldn't just be isolated as software delivery - it had to change the organisations it worked with/within. I remember having just such an argument many years ago about governments building software using ostensibly "agile" approaches, and yet still requiring three-year budget approaches from the national treasury - they simply weren't compatible! That final quote is wonderful, and I do feel the same about software in many ways - all the true wonder of computers and the things they can do for people will never really benefit everyone fully unless it spans the national, the corporate, and the personal.

kolektiv 2y ago

I agree entirely on Le Corbusier, while I love the eventual outcome of his work in many senses (aesthetically certainly), his approach to actual people was (as you say) far less humane than Alexander. Alexander I think saw himself as a part of "the people" - from what I know of Le Corbusier, I don't imagine he did. I've not yet read The Oregon Experiment (it's in one of the waiting piles) but I've skimmed it. Funnily enough, the comparison you make around changing budgeting processes to enable smaller projects, having users working as part of planning, etc. reminds me of some of the original intents of agile before it was co-opted. For agile to work it couldn't just be isolated as software delivery - it had to change the organisations it worked with/within. I remember having just such an argument many years ago about governments building software using ostensibly "agile" approaches, and yet still requiring three-year budget approaches from the national treasury - they simply weren't compatible! That final quote is wonderful, and I do feel the same about software in many ways - all the true wonder of computers and the things they can do for people will never really benefit everyone fully unless it spans the national, the corporate, and the personal.