4 ms·

I'll just contrast two quotes from the article: - Good design is iterative - Vitsoe 606 Shelving system, designed in 1960 by Dieter Rams. They still make them

I'll just contrast two quotes from the article: - Good design is iterative - Vitsoe 606 Shelving system, designed in 1960 by Dieter Rams. They still make them today, and to the same spec.

thinkingisfun 14y ago
They still make them today, and to the same spec Which says nothing about the process (and possibly iteration) that went into the design before it was finalized.
dredmorbius 14y ago
The fact that the 1960 design is still used doesn't make it non-iterative. It simply makes it the final iteration in that development branch. Edit: and it has in fact been improved in several regards, mostly materials: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/garden/dieter-ramss-606-shelving-system-is-reissued.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/garden/dieter-ramss-606-sh... I'll add another quote: "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - Antoine de Saint Exupéry. Eventually you get there. Or close to it. Too: Rams worked in physical media. Eventually you've got to ship, and in his case, he couldn't push updates twice a day. This happens even in software and web design. The "bones" of Linux were layed down in AT&T's labs over 40 years ago. For mainframe computing, history starts over 50 years back. Even today's major websites have their own mass and inertia in the form of their code base -- you can push changes every 12 hours, if you like but things have to work together, and either modularity or fragility will impose limits on what you can reasonably change and expect to have functioning, stable code.
- eevilspock 14y ago
  "Good design is arrived at iteratively" != "Good design is iterative" See also calinet6's comment.
  - 001sky 14y ago
    Do good designs ever evolve?
    - dredmorbius 14y ago
      So far as I'm concerned they always do. Given that reality changes (change is the only constant), it's a must.
  - dredmorbius 14y ago
    > "Good design is arrived at iteratively" != "Good design is iterative" We'd differ on that. Iterative design is iterative.

I'll just contrast two quotes from the article: - Good design is iterative - Vitsoe 606 Shelving system, designed in 1960 by Dieter Rams. They still make them today, and to the same spec.

thinkingisfun 14y ago

They still make them today, and to the same spec Which says nothing about the process (and possibly iteration) that went into the design before it was finalized.

dredmorbius 14y ago

The fact that the 1960 design is still used doesn't make it non-iterative. It simply makes it the final iteration in that development branch. Edit: and it has in fact been improved in several regards, mostly materials: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/garden/dieter-ramss-606-shelving-system-is-reissued.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/garden/dieter-ramss-606-sh... I'll add another quote: "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - Antoine de Saint Exupéry. Eventually you get there. Or close to it. Too: Rams worked in physical media. Eventually you've got to ship, and in his case, he couldn't push updates twice a day. This happens even in software and web design. The "bones" of Linux were layed down in AT&T's labs over 40 years ago. For mainframe computing, history starts over 50 years back. Even today's major websites have their own mass and inertia in the form of their code base -- you can push changes every 12 hours, if you like but things have to work together, and either modularity or fragility will impose limits on what you can reasonably change and expect to have functioning, stable code.

eevilspock 14y ago
"Good design is arrived at iteratively" != "Good design is iterative" See also calinet6's comment.
- 001sky 14y ago
  Do good designs ever evolve?
  - dredmorbius 14y ago
    So far as I'm concerned they always do. Given that reality changes (change is the only constant), it's a must.
- dredmorbius 14y ago
  > "Good design is arrived at iteratively" != "Good design is iterative" We'd differ on that. Iterative design is iterative.