2024-11-26 20:05 • 244 words

In the foreword of Richard Gabriels book Patterns of Software Christopher Alexander expresses a remarkable take on the level of quality he aspired to in his work.

In my life as an architect, I find that the single thing which inhibits young professionals, new students most severely, is their acceptance of standards that are too low. If I ask a student whether her design is as good as Chartres, she often smiles tolerantly at me as if to say, “Of course not, that isn’t what I am trying to do. I could never do that.”

Then, I express my disagreement, and tell her: “That standard must be our standard. If you are going to be a builder, no other standard is worthwhile. [..]”

Alexander then continues to ask if architecture is actually the correct metaphor and whether a parallel can really can be drawn between the fields, for he asserts that in his later buildings he arrived at the qualities of aliveness he was seeking out (pointing to his late opus "The nature of order"). He doesn't ask it rhetorically, and doesn't give an answer, but he notes on the field of software:

I get the impression that road seems harder to software people than maybe it did to me, that the quality software engineers might want to strive for is more elusive because the artifacts—the programs, the code—are more abstract, more intellectual, more soulless than the places we live in every day.