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ArchitectureSession

"An architecture provides the spaces in which realities can be created." Nynke's interpretation of a Lao Tse phrase found on Talesien West's theater wall.

ChangeLog

I am hoping that we can create an architectural reality in this space. One such reality could be what we do at AYE Conference related to architecture. Another is what we do today.

Several of us have been sporadically talking about architecture stuff. A PrimingThread is some of these early discussions. The following list is some of the documents that have been used in those discussions.

And some useful web sites:

I have dumped a lot of stuff here and I may have taken some liberties with the material. If I have, I apologize. If there is anything here that you do *not* want here, take it off or ask me to take it off.

Bob: We are presented with the classic architectural problem - how to organize all this information into something useful.
Nynke: I propose we that we use an explicit purpose alignment process, and that we try affinity groupings to have a look at what perspectives might give us?
Bob: First, thank you, Nynke, for the work that you have done here. I love your writing. My first problem (and it is of my own making) is how to comment on all the stuff that you updated here. And, something that really struck me as very interesting is now gone. You had a paragraph in one of your documents on Human Architecting. Can you repost it? And now, I have always enjoyed a good affinity analysis and I have always had trouble naming the clusters. What do you see as our first step? And how do we carry it out?

Nynke: You don't have to thank me, I am in this for my own reasons.<grin> As for the comments: Graham described "blurry" to "clear". I have not "commented" much on what Stiles and Graham have been writing because I think I need to "unclear" first. I am absorbing and percolating on what both are writing.

I need such ununderstanding because I wish to be a problem solver and not a problem solutioner. We need a purpose for the ArchitectureSession and I feel that weaving our thoughts the way we seem to be doing, is important for purpose alignment. Furthermore, I have invited some people to join us as virtual "stakeholders" in this process and I hope they will do a lot of commenting and the such. I also hope more stakeholder perspectives will be offered.

Or am I misunderstanding your question?

On the Human Architecture paragraph, I will send you the pdf as soon as my other machine has access to the web again, sigh ...

Bob: Ah, a purpose for the session - something of some significance perhaps. I am enamoured of your ideas in the in a paragraph you called human architecture. I found a copy of that document that I earlier had printed out. To paraphrase, perhaps the ultimate architecture is found in Nature. An individual human is physically remade many times in his or her life, yet grows continues to grow intellectually. Species as a whole are constantly adapting looking for a better fit with their environment by just being the best they can be. Such examples are too numerous to list and too wonderous to comprehend - and all with such a light central touch. Perhaps I am going off of the deep end here, but I can't help but feel that Nature presents architectural elements for us to aspire to.

(Jerry) I like the way this is going. I personally think that architecture doesn't have much meaning for a system that doesn't change. Such a static system just is, but when a system changes, you can begin to see the architecture of the system in what doesn't change. That's certainly true of human beings - sometimes we call it "character." Perhaps architecture of a system is somehow the essential "character" of that system.

In these terms, what Nynke calls "change architecting" would be setting the essential, unchanging character of the way a system changes.

Of course, "unchanging" is on some relative time scale. Part of the description of an architecture thus ought to be the time scale over which the system is supposed or presumed to last. This is seldom furnished for information systems, which is one reason that architecting them is so hard. How would you architect a house if it was presumed to have to last "forever" - the way some people think that information systems are supposed to last?

(Jerry) what Nynke calls "change architecting" would be setting the essential, unchanging character of the way a system changes. (Nynke) Yes, I am. (Bob) Perhaps I am going off of the deep end here, but I can't help but feel that Nature presents architectural elements for us to aspire to. (Nynke) People who think not much of our Mothers architectural skills I consider having gone off .... I can only stand in Awe with her Work and feel warm and fuzzy with such aspirations. Looking forward to working with you. See you on the 9/10th!

(Bob) Wow. I am taken in so many ways. I have always viewed "doing architecture" as a prospective activity. I help to organize the system before the system is "placed in concrete". But, in order to "set the essential, unchanging character of the way a system changes", I believe I must observe the system for some non-trivial amount of time. In order to do this, a system must be in place. So, the priming activity of an architect - which I have to some degree in the past viewed as the overriding activity of an architect - is to put in place a workable and adaptable initial organization. Then, I must carefully observe how the system changes so that I can help divine what its essential unchanging character is. hmmmm, this will take some more thought....
(Jerry) That in itself is profound, and anathema to those who want to find ways to do architecture without thought. One of the techniques of the architect trying to set the essential unchanging character of the way a system changes" is to make things so they require thought to change. That's one of the things that makes software architecture so difficult: any idiot with access to the configuration management system can destroy an architecture in minutes, and it's really hard to prevent without architecting a maintenance system. And, the idiot can do this destruction in a way that nobody notices.

With buildings, at least, you may have to move some large blocks of stone to destroy the architecture, which may make you pause and think - unless you're at war. And, usually, when you move big blocks of stone, somebody notices.

(Bob) Yes, at least we should find ways for idoicy to be visible - that in itself might prevent many idiocies. And will make visible how the system can adapt.

I was on a college campus this weekend and was reminded of a neat idea that I carry with and use far too little. Walking from place to place is an important part of a college campus. Many sidewalks exist for students to walk on and, invariably, dirt paths exist where the students actually walk. The neat idea that I have heard was that someone who was adding some new buildings to a college campus did not build any sidewalks. Then he or she waited to see where students did walk and built the sidewalks there.

I am not sure if once there were sidewalks where they were walking if students then started walking on different routes, but this would be nice to know. In any event, I am not sure that this goes to the essential character of the college landscape architectural system or not, but it does point that sometimes putting in place a loose structure for a system, then watching for a while what happens and then perhaps adding a little more structure can be effective. And I think that it does relate to building software.

(Bob) hmmmm, this will take some more thought.... (Jerry) One of the techniques of the architect trying to set the essential unchanging character of the way a system changes" is to make things so they require thought to change.

(Nynke) We could model Abelian Groups where the operations require observations and thought or are observing and thinking <grin>. Group Theory fits nicely with Qualitative Modeling. Somehow I seem to associate open ended plannings to how Merce Cunningham and John Cage (Modern Dance & Music in the 20th century) worked together.

(Jerry) Students walk where there are no sidewalks. After this clever experiment, the students still made other "shortcuts." There is more to this than optimization. There is, for example, rebellion. And, there is the idea that students and other human beings will NEVER all walk along paths that others have set. You can see this on any trail where we hike - there are always people that make their own shortcuts or longcuts. Perhaps this is a limit to pre-determined architecture, and perhaps it's a good thing.

(Bob) Unsettling thought just occurred to me. I have always viewed "doing architecture" as essentially a model building (read NT) activity. And that is what I have done and enjoyed as an architect. Our earlier discussions about finding the essential unchanging nature of how a system changes feels fundementally different than this to me. Perhaps it moves the activities of architecture more to an SP approach to the world.
(Jerry) It's certainly one of the architecture traps, to imagine that you can do architecture in your head (N) without noticing the world outside of your head (S). On the other hand, a second trap is being too influenced by what is (S), and not extending what could be (N).
(Bob) Ah, yes. Now I remember why I need to partner with project managers!

More thoughts on "discovering the essential nature of how a system changes": when I add: "or will change" to the end of that phrase, the dynamics change. Now, instead of observing an existing system, I am trying to understand how what I am building might be changed. I think that one measure that I have used in the past for "good" architecture related to how much the system changes after it is put into place. Now, maybe, a better measure is to examine how easy it is to make changes to the system after it is in place. I think that I have done this sometimes. This approach, though, can make project managers and sponsors nervous.

And, another thing - perhaps a more important system to understand its essential nature of how it changes is the system of people and processes that is building that other system. A different slant would to understand the nature of how that system makes changes.
(Bob) An accident in time. I was reading The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Eric Raymond's book on Open Source Software and felt rather sheepish when I read this paragraph:<cr>
"Linux evolved in a completely different way. From nearly the beginning, it was rather casually hacked on by huge numbers of vounteers coordinating only through the Internet. Quality was maintained not by rigid standards or autocracy but by the naively simple strategy of realieasing every week and getting feedback from hundereds of user within days, creating a sort of rapid Darwinian selection on the mutations introduced by developers. To the amazement of almost everyone, this worked quite well."

I felt sheepish, I think, because open source development sets the essential nature of change in the systems developed using it and I hadn't really noticed that before. Fortunately, large numbers of people are available to offer both code and feedback. I wonder how this scales down?

For those of you who do not have edit access to this document and its relatives, I am willing to post your comments. Just provide to me the context for your comments and the comments, then I will insert them where applicable. BobKing

Updated: Friday, August 3, 2001