In which I successfully resist the urge to make someone's head explode
There's a going phenomenon in computer science circles called "patterns". The idea is that a huge number of the problems programmers and designers are faced with have been solved before, in a variety of clever and not-so-clever ways. As people identify recurring problems and clever, flexible solutions for those problems, they write them down and put them in books. Voila, patterns of solutions.
Credit for the idea is widely given to Christopher Alexander's book "A Pattern Language". This isn't a computer science book. It's an architecture book. The idea is that he presents patterns of solutions to architectural issues, patterns that can be reused and adapted to solve many problems. Since architecture has always been an interest of mine, I finally decided to pick up the book and read it.
By the time I'd read twenty pages, I was fighting a desperate urge to hand it to travis_w and try to convince him that it was totally up his alley and something that he'd really find insightful and brilliant. And then wait for his head to explode. He'd probably never talk to me again.
There are a lot of good things in the book, don't get me wrong. And, in fact, I still recommend reading it. A lot of thought went into a lot of the patterns, and a lot of them will strike a chord with anyone who's spent any time thinking about urban planning. But a lot of the book is... well...
Dude's a hippy. And not the happy kind. Or, for that matter, the kind that stops to think about things before making sweeping proclamations.
He starts the book by arguing for the abolition of nations, advocates the destruction of large corporations, blames tall buildings for many of society's problems, and argues at great length for the dismantling of formal education systems because, and I'm not making this up, teaching interferes with learning. He rants intensely and at great length, with only the briefest of pauses to catch his breath and try to assemble some sense of coherency. All of this in an architecture book.
The problem is that in many cases, the patterns he presents are a thorough mixture of pure unedited feel-good blathering and really solid pragmatic advice. At the same time. Often in the same sentence. The stuff that's totally out in left field makes it hard to take any of it seriously, but the stuff that's pragmatic makes it hard not to take it all seriously.
So I'm left torn. There's a lot of good stuff in the book, and it's worth reading, but all in all, I'd have to say that I'm still reading it as much for entertainment as for actual knowledge.
Credit for the idea is widely given to Christopher Alexander's book "A Pattern Language". This isn't a computer science book. It's an architecture book. The idea is that he presents patterns of solutions to architectural issues, patterns that can be reused and adapted to solve many problems. Since architecture has always been an interest of mine, I finally decided to pick up the book and read it.
By the time I'd read twenty pages, I was fighting a desperate urge to hand it to travis_w and try to convince him that it was totally up his alley and something that he'd really find insightful and brilliant. And then wait for his head to explode. He'd probably never talk to me again.
There are a lot of good things in the book, don't get me wrong. And, in fact, I still recommend reading it. A lot of thought went into a lot of the patterns, and a lot of them will strike a chord with anyone who's spent any time thinking about urban planning. But a lot of the book is... well...
Dude's a hippy. And not the happy kind. Or, for that matter, the kind that stops to think about things before making sweeping proclamations.
He starts the book by arguing for the abolition of nations, advocates the destruction of large corporations, blames tall buildings for many of society's problems, and argues at great length for the dismantling of formal education systems because, and I'm not making this up, teaching interferes with learning. He rants intensely and at great length, with only the briefest of pauses to catch his breath and try to assemble some sense of coherency. All of this in an architecture book.
The problem is that in many cases, the patterns he presents are a thorough mixture of pure unedited feel-good blathering and really solid pragmatic advice. At the same time. Often in the same sentence. The stuff that's totally out in left field makes it hard to take any of it seriously, but the stuff that's pragmatic makes it hard not to take it all seriously.
So I'm left torn. There's a lot of good stuff in the book, and it's worth reading, but all in all, I'd have to say that I'm still reading it as much for entertainment as for actual knowledge.