The Nature of Software - Introduction

[droqen]

Regarding Dorian Taylor's
"The Nature of Software*"
*Introduction chapter only, the rest is a paid subscription

Forwarded to me by Alex.Fyve

This series is going to take a personal view on Alexander's magnum opus, The Nature of Order.

I took interest in this because I have read three out of four books of The Nature of Order and I was interested in some of the premise, but what really made me start this thread was noticing some things that I really disagree with.

[droqen]

Actually, the disagreement is so fundamental that I don't know if I have anything left to say... anyway, I'm going to start with it, because I don't suppose that I've felt anything in particular about the rest of Taylor's interpretive work, except my stark reaction to this poor summary of living structure:

"The quintessential dead structure is a monument. . . . Maintaining the monument is a sunk cost. Take away that support and the monument will crumble to dust. Living structure, by contrast, is lived in. It is continually being revised and expanded. . . . Much like living structure in the ordinary sense as Alexander meant it, it's what the code does--its effect on the world and the people around it--that attracts the resources and attention that keeps it alive."

On the face of it this deeply misunderstands the geometric, static nature of life. Many, many times, Alexander plainly describes aliveness in terms that are misunderstood as something much smaller in this section.

Taylor writes, "This description of living structure sounds a lot like software. Software with any kind of currency is constantly being revised and expanded", and I can understand his perspective; he is trying to apply this grand theory to a very narrow domain. However, in doing the work of application, he incompletely portrays the concept of life.

If a sheet of paper with a line drawn on it may be more or less alive, then we cannot understand life by summarizing it at only one simple level of scale.

To some degree I understand that practical considerations mean it is easier or even better to look at this concept through a smaller viewpoint. But I take offense at the suggestion that this is a good way "to understand living structure".