3 ms·

"Rather than design master plans, we designers of systems should instead design federations of little systems linked together by extensible protocols and generi

by state 12y ago

"Rather than design master plans, we designers of systems should instead design federations of little systems linked together by extensible protocols and generic interfaces. This way we can create complex systems without having to explicitly define them. These protocols and interfaces themselves are systems which, in order to work, must constrain what can be said." I'd be very interested to see a companion piece that investigates specific working examples of this approach. Most importantly, I'd like to see examples of systems of this kind that can actually be attributed to a single person or small group.

twelvechairs 12y ago
This is basically 'systems theory', which was all the rage in the 60s and 70s, and Christopher Alexander's work was linked to. There's a reason it didn't take off as much as expected - not because the overarching premise is wrong (that its possible to describe all things, even design, in a systematic way), but just that its incredibly difficult to the point of impossible for people to do so.
- state 12y ago
  Right: that's what I was trying to imply. It's very appealing to think this way, but the only missing piece is how you actually do it.
- dorian 12y ago
  Notes on the Synthesis of Form is a lot more systems-theoretic. The algorithm is more or less recursive min-cut partitioning which is now well-researched. There is, however, a real logistical problem is getting the input requirements, massaging them to identical conceptual scope, and then connecting them together so you can perform said decomposition. That is a massive, massive bottleneck. That's why it's so telling that Alexander abandoned the technique in his thesis in favour of using the building site itself, in effect, as a computational medium.
dorian 12y ago
The Web from its inception until about ~1996-97 was like this.

by state 12y ago

twelvechairs 12y ago

This is basically 'systems theory', which was all the rage in the 60s and 70s, and Christopher Alexander's work was linked to. There's a reason it didn't take off as much as expected - not because the overarching premise is wrong (that its possible to describe all things, even design, in a systematic way), but just that its incredibly difficult to the point of impossible for people to do so.

state 12y ago
Right: that's what I was trying to imply. It's very appealing to think this way, but the only missing piece is how you actually do it.
dorian 12y ago
Notes on the Synthesis of Form is a lot more systems-theoretic. The algorithm is more or less recursive min-cut partitioning which is now well-researched. There is, however, a real logistical problem is getting the input requirements, massaging them to identical conceptual scope, and then connecting them together so you can perform said decomposition. That is a massive, massive bottleneck. That's why it's so telling that Alexander abandoned the technique in his thesis in favour of using the building site itself, in effect, as a computational medium.

dorian 12y ago

The Web from its inception until about ~1996-97 was like this.