Somehow I think the foreword of Christopher Alexander is very emotional. I cannot express why.
To me the key is joy. The joy of writing, maintaining and using software.
To me the key is joy. The joy of writing, maintaining and using software.
He asks what standards we should have for software. In architecture, there is the Chartres and myriad other truly beautiful structures—what if we judge software by such standards?
I agree that it's a beautiful and powerful foreword.
To me, another key idea is software as a way of building. It implies that a computer system can be an inhabitable, ownable, sustainable thing made for supporting human life... like a shed, a tractor, a garden, a town...