Today, I watched a video I recently stumbled across, of a 1995 lecture by architect Christopher Alexander.
I knew about his influence on modern software development, but it was still amazing to see just how direct the connection is. He and his team was doing in 1995 what we in software at best aspire to be doing in 2025.
Plus, he was building out of concrete.
Oh, and on fixed price.
I wonder if any teams of software craftsmen out there have managed to get there?
I am fully aware that the video may not seem like a flash of brilliance to everyone. You possibly need to have been immersed in a very similar soup of impressions and ideas. But if you have, the feeling of quiet revelation might feel equally large. Here comes this very 90's looking man into this very 90's looking lecture room. He sits down next to a overhead projector, not a single note in sight, and just begins talking. Very early on, he says:
"There is a fiction that you can get buildings right by drawing drawings. And I do want to emphasize that it is only a fiction."
That is just the start.
He speaks for about an hour, talking through a current project and how they solve problems and grasp opportunities by being deeply involved in the construction process. "They" include the people for which the house is built, architects, engineers, and of course all other builders.
The fact that all skills required should always be on hand is merely a side note.
I have not even mentioned all the prototyping and iteration you can do while constructing a building.
So much software architecture gold in a single video completely not about software architecture.