No, I've not. How was Timeless Way of Building? I like the title.
I'm reading Replay: The History of Video Games. While not particularly philosophically engaging, it is utterly fascinating and exciting, tracing the development of video games as a medium from the earliest computers in the 40s and 50s to today's active scene. Makes me want to be entrepreneurial.
(Also, I was having trouble commenting on your post, i.e. it wasn't letting me. So, I just changed the settings to pop-up comments and suddenly it's working. I had this same problem on my art blog.)
The Timeless Way of Building was interesting, particularly in the way its advice is generally applicable for anything people might design (like software). The way he writes is interesting too, alternating italicized summary sentences with details that flesh out those ideas.
Thanks, Vincent. I'm curious about A Pattern Language because Alexander talks about it a lot in The Timeless Way of Building. As a software-type person, I expect you're familiar with Gamma et al and their Design Patterns book, which led me to Alexander.
But so far as I can tell, the two are only loosely related. Gamma's Design Patterns look a lot more like plain old algorithms and data structures, while Alexander's patterns are more ambitious and holistic. What he's trying to do is loosely capture the essence of things that work for people, and then create a language from that collection of things, and then enable people to design their own buildings using the given pattern language.
4 comments:
No, I've not. How was Timeless Way of Building? I like the title.
I'm reading Replay: The History of Video Games. While not particularly philosophically engaging, it is utterly fascinating and exciting, tracing the development of video games as a medium from the earliest computers in the 40s and 50s to today's active scene. Makes me want to be entrepreneurial.
(Also, I was having trouble commenting on your post, i.e. it wasn't letting me. So, I just changed the settings to pop-up comments and suddenly it's working. I had this same problem on my art blog.)
The Timeless Way of Building was interesting, particularly in the way its advice is generally applicable for anything people might design (like software). The way he writes is interesting too, alternating italicized summary sentences with details that flesh out those ideas.
Following my timeless way of reading blogs and responding to them, I have just caught up with this. and checked the author of your first mentioned.
No I never read it but I have 2 other books by Christopher Alexander, which have entered my consciousness over the years:
Notes on the Synthesis of Form
A pattern language
I'd like to know more of what you think about The Timeless Way of Building
Thanks, Vincent. I'm curious about A Pattern Language because Alexander talks about it a lot in The Timeless Way of Building. As a software-type person, I expect you're familiar with Gamma et al and their Design Patterns book, which led me to Alexander.
But so far as I can tell, the two are only loosely related. Gamma's Design Patterns look a lot more like plain old algorithms and data structures, while Alexander's patterns are more ambitious and holistic. What he's trying to do is loosely capture the essence of things that work for people, and then create a language from that collection of things, and then enable people to design their own buildings using the given pattern language.
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