Christopher Alexander - Patterns in Architecture

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Strong rec simonebrunozzi · 2018-12 · on ““A pattern language” explained (2016)”

Just finished watching a great 1996 lecture by Christopher Alexander: [this video] I recommend it for those who have read his work, but never seen or heard the man in action.

Recommends shkaboinka · 2016-11 · on “WebAssembly Stack Machine”

...and if you're brave enough, think about how Christopher Alexander's philosophy of "unfolding wholeness" applies so much more to an AST than to the stack-machines of the 1960's: [this video]

Recommends paloaltokid · 2019-08 · on “Japanese architects who treated buildings like living organisms”

For anyone interested, Christopher Alexander was a huge influence on Ward Cunningham and Kent Beck. You can draw a fairly straight line from Alexander's ideas to new stuff like wiki, Extreme Programming, design patterns, refactoring, etc. For a very prescient talk by Alexander in 1996 to a bunch of ACM folks, see this video: [this video]

Recommends keithnz · 2021-03 · on ““Design Patterns” Aren't (2002)”

this talk that christopher alexander did a number of years ago is quite interesting [this video] one of the interesting things is that he had really moved on from "patterns" and was looking for something more intrinisic or "atomic" about design. Which actually is a much better guide to designing software.

Recommends keithnz · 2026-07 · on “All 253 Patterns from Christopher Alexander's a Pattern Language Summarized”

worth checking this out from 1996 [this video] kind of ironic he was moving away from patterns to more fundamental concepts just as the software world was just discovering patterns. I think his shift to these more fundamental concepts is a much better way to think about design.

Cites shkaboinka · 2016-06 · on “Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today”

I've seen similarities between your work (OOP) and that of Christopher Alexander (Patterns). Do you have anything to say about how your/his works tie together? (Note that Alexander's work is perhaps even more misrepresented in software than OOP has come to be). For example, he talks a lot about how anything that is to evolve naturally, or even properly serve the human component, must be composed of living structure. video of C.A. addressing the software community's (mis-)application of his work at OOPSLA: [this video]

Cites lolinder · 2022-12 · on “Beautiful Software: Christopher Alexander's research initiative on computing”

I recently rewatched his address to OOPSLA[0] and it was funny to see him trying to avoid coming straight out and saying "you guys completely misunderstood the point of my work!" He tried to allow for the possibility that he was just misunderstanding, but it was pretty obvious that he knew that the Gang of Four style patterns movement took the surface level organization from his work and completely ignored the moral and ethical point of it all. Glad to see he didn't leave off with that! We could do with more software people studying his actual work, which was building humane, living spaces that make people whole. [0] [this video]

Cites AlbertCory · 2022-12 · on “Beautiful Software: Christopher Alexander's research initiative on computing”

Is it possible to sympathize and agree with everything he says, and yet find the writing insufferably pompous? Because that's where I'm at with The Timeless Way of Building. I didn't get that in watching him: [this video] I was picturing someone like Dan Akroyd on SNL as Leonard Pinth Garnell and "Bad Ballet."