[jalfresi]

Very early in my software development career, i was frustrated and sad that i wasnt able to progress due to a lack of comprehension of how software is structured from smaller sub systems. I didnt have any kind of mentor available to me, and I seriously considered changing careers. I naively assumed that good software was written by naturally talented people, and because I was having problems growing I was obviously not talented and therefore would never get improve (I was young).

Then i stumbled across “Notes on the synthesis of form” from some random internet recommendation.

Not only was this book a complete eye opener, it helped me to understand so much about what I was doing was mostly by accident, and that design should be purposeful.

The most important lesson for my fledgling mind though was that design was a process, and a process that improved with each application. That good software developers arnt “born”, they are self sculpted.

I still have that battered, note riddled, page corners folded copy of “notes” and I take with me on holiday every year to re-read. Its my most favourite book I’ve ever read. It fills me with such inspiration everytime I read it.

I’m very sad to hear of Christophers passing. I never got to thank him.

[seumars]

My intro to Alexander was also through Notes on the Synthesis of Form, though personally I found it to be really antiquated. Shortly after I found out he distanced himself from a lot of the design methodology work he did in the 60s:

>‘There is so little in what is called ‘design methods’that has anything useful to say about how to design buildings that I never evenread the literature anymore [...] I would say forget it, forget the whole thing.’

That's not to say the literature and was/is immensely inspiring, so much so that his name comes up within software engineering as much as it does within architecture.

[refset]

He described this distancing from the methodology, and consequently what he considered the salient message, in a preface for a later printing of the book [0]:

> Today, almost ten years after I wrote this book, one idea stands out clearly for me as the most important in the book: the idea of the diagrams. [...] I reject the whole idea of design methods as a subject of study, since I think it is absurd to separate the study of designing from the practice of design. [...] No one will become a better designer by blindly following this method, or indeed by following any method blindly. [...] In the process of trying to create such diagrams or patterns for yourself, you will reach the central idea which this book is all about.

I think this explains why Inkscape is my favourite piece of software :)

[0] https://monoskop.org/images/f/ff/Alexander_Christopher_Notes...