[self-interest] Architecture and Programming

[Albertina Lourenci]

Richard wrote:
Hi Richard:
I am almost drowning here with the flood of messages.Though
I want to give a special response to Sekhar, I cannot give up
the pleasure of hearing my inner hermeneutic voice and chat
with you first easing the task of a more serious conversation.

> cramakrishnan at acm.org wrote:
> > There's been a lot of recent discussion on this list about
> > architecture and patterns.  Though it hasn't been explictly stated, i
> > think there's an underlying assumption that programming has a deep
> > connection to architecture.
> >
> > Assuming i'm understanding correctly, would anyone like to make that
> > argument?  Explain to me why you think there is a deeper connection
> > between programming and architecutre than programming and any other
> > creative endevor that humans engage in like music or, say, bowling?
>

>
> Both programming and architecture must satisfy functional and human needs.
> Music does not have any functional requirements so nowadays it's entirely
> driven by corporations and personal taste. Because of the former, modern
> music is a complete wasteland.
>

I wonder whether  you have seen a video tape like the one I saw  last week
about the life of the surrealist painter Max Ernst accompanied by Stravinsky's

music as background.
Moreover I wonder whether you have suffered from strong hallucinations (visual

and auditive)
like the ones  I had from June 1976 until February 1987  while I was
attempting
to overthrown the inertia of the educational system to pursue faithfully
the suggestions of my inner voice. I could not look for a Brazilian
psychiatrist
I would run risk of having part of my brain extracted!!!! And could not take
any medicine, I  am vegetarian and a simple aspirine put my brain anesthesized

for several hours!
If you have, I am sure modern and contemporary music should sound as  freedom
and delight to release one's inner pent-up emotions.
We artists say that the only dictators mankind should have, are musicians!
So  the angels of music is the voice of God! How God created the world?
Through a Word!
In the beginning  was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God. All things were made by Him and without Him was not anything
made that was made. In Him was life; and the life  was the light of men. And
the light shineth in darkness: and the darkness comprehended it not.
Imagine if we could reach that level for creating artefacts on earth!

>
> But programming per se has little connection to architecture.

Well when one has not studied semiotics and hermeneutics,
this statement looks like precise.
Semioticists state " the task of the semioticist is not simply to describe
a system of expression, but to discover which systems of expression in
general are possible as expressions for a given system of content
and reciprocally.
Computer scientists have been recognizing a software is a sort of
art, hence architecture is an art..Art has an hermeneutic nature...
I mean art has the nature of conversation, play,  experience,  the
structure of the question and so on...All these mechanisms have
a serious nature, so serious they do not depend on the players,
or the persons engaged in these activities...


> Rather,
> computer science encompasses both programming and software architecture.

In agree. According to Dietmar Schütz and Frank Buschmann's tutorial
in Pattern Oriented Software Architecture ECOOP'97 Finland we gave
pattern categories:
Architectural patterns: express fundamental structural organizations
on system level.
-layers
- pipes and filters
- Blackboard
Broker
- Model-View-Controller
- Presentation -Abstraction -Control\
- Microkernel
- Reflection

Design Patterns: provide a scheme for refining subsystems or
components of a software system, or the relationships between
them.

from the GoF....

The modern development environments have focused on
establishing new architectures, which could be supportive
of an explorative, interactive and iterative program
development process.

>
> It is possible to do architecture without programming, even if this is
> anathema to the Extreme Programming crowd and you can't get a job that
> way. And of course, requiring aspiring software architects to prove
> themselves as programmers makes as much sense as requiring building
> architects to prove themselves as draftsmen.

There are four essential professionals involved  in the exercise of good
architecture:
- the industrial designer
- the architect (designer)
- the structural engineer
- the builder

Well  Bruno Zevi states "The essence of architecture.. does not
lie in the material limitation to spatial freedom, but in the manner
how the space is structured in a meaningful form through this
process of limitation...

A contemporary architect cannot disregard how to integrate
environmental comfort, structural and building systems,
activities (the layout of furniture respecting the
ecology of human behaviour (ergonomically and anthropometrically)
as a unity in a seamless process...The same we must say
about the other professionals.

> Training as a programmer
> is actually a sure way to destroy the instincts of an architect. Too
> much technical knowledge hinders your ability to envision the human
> dimension.
>

For the modern artist, the machine or the technological dimensiom
would free mankind from slavery, would free mankind to take
profit of the really human potentials.

When I finished my ecodesign model in 1988 (which was considered
a work of doctoral level) I had to face the need to implement it.
Of course if I had engaged in practices like programming in Pascal
C, Prolog and even Lisp was not tasteful to me , I would kill
my creative potentials.
This is what the CAD group from GSAUP UCLA offered. There was
even a PHD in computer science in Spain based in Pascal and so on
and was at Architectural Faculty Sydney.
I would prefer to starve and stay in Brazil than to do this.
I kept faithful to the hermeneutic nature of my ecodesign model
and soon I discovered OO programming till the glorious
moment I was introduced to Self (1996).
Now I say Kansas is musical...so I can turn the act of
building sustainable cities into a hymn of worship to the Creator..
I mean working together in architecture may mimick the nature of
a symphony thanks to wise technology. Indeed Scandinavians
say there is no social segregation...There is lack of scientific
and technological knowledge to allow each human being to
enjoy a high quality of life.

>
> It would be desirable for every programmer to also be an architect but
> this is as unrealistic as expecting every engineer to also be a musician
> (so they can tell the tension on the catapults by the pitch of the skeins
> alone).
>

It would be desirable that programmers  that realize a software is
also art, should be trained in art too. This is the essence of my recent
post-dcotorate  report.

>
> The job of the programmer is to instantiate software based on abstact
> architectures. The job of the architect is to produce and improve
> abstract architectures from existing software. These are fundamentally
> different tasks.

The aim of open computational systems is to overthrow segregation...The
marriage of  reflexive metaarchitectures and OO promise to change
radically the way of thinking, organizing implementing and using
programming languages and environments.
Self/R from Jecel wants to follow this trend.

>
>
> I read a good paper (can't remember where) on the uselessness of software
> reuse which explains that while the abstract architectures in two different
> pieces of software may be identical, no code can be shared between them.
> Moreover, recognizing that the architecture in code A is the one you need
> for job B is in general a hopelessly difficult task.

This I let for the experts to add comments.

Best wishes
Albertina

--
.----------------------------------------------------------.
| Albertina Lourenci                                       |
| PhD  in Architecture and Urbanism                        |
| post-doctorate researcher                                |
| Laboratory of Integrated Systems University of Sao Paulo |
| Avenida Professor Luciano Gualberto, 158 Travessa 3      |
| CEP: 05508-900                                           |
| Sao Paulo Sao Paulo State Brazil                         |
| Voice: +55 011 818 5254                                  |
| Fax: +55 11 211 4574                                     |
.----------------------------------------------------------.


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