{"id":495,"date":"2004-10-14T10:20:00","date_gmt":"2004-10-14T14:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.markbaker.ca\/wp\/2004\/10\/14\/constraints-your-best-bud-in-design\/"},"modified":"2004-10-14T10:20:00","modified_gmt":"2004-10-14T14:20:00","slug":"constraints-your-best-bud-in-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.markbaker.ca\/blog\/2004\/10\/constraints-your-best-bud-in-design\/","title":{"rendered":"Constraints; your best bud in design"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have the utmost respect for\nDon Box<\/a>\nand his work, but I have to wonder whether he’s pulling my chain, or just honestly\nmissing the point about the value of architectural constraints when\nhe writes<\/a>;<\/p>\n\n

\nBTW, while I do claim that you can solve the majority of the world’s problems using an arbitrary handful of operations, I never claim that actually requiring (or even recommending) the world to do so is a good idea. It’s a wonderful thought experiment, but trying to evangelize that the world only requires a fixed number of verbs is quite odd.\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

How to put this respectfully, and without sounding condescending, hmm…\nIt’s tough, because as I see it, the fundamental theorem of software architecture\n(and design in general, for that matter) is that only through constraint is\nutility generated. This is what the work of luminaries such as\nDewayne Perry and Alex Wolf<\/a>,\nand\nRoy Fielding<\/a>\ntaught us (for software architecture, at least – others such as\nChristopher Alexander<\/a>\nhave done it in other fields). How do you tell somebody like Don that, without getting\nhis knickers in a twist? I’m stumped. But it’s something that needs to be said, and\nas my regular readers will know, it’s not a task I shy away from. 8-)<\/p>\n\n

So IMO, there’s really two separate fundamental misunderstandings going on here,\nand until the first – the role of constraints in design – is understood, the second\n– the value of the uniform interface – can probably not be fully appreciated.<\/p>\n\n

It seems that well-intentioned efforts such as\nDave’s latest<\/a>\nare trying to bridge the divide via incremental progress; if only we tweaked\nthis, or hacked that, we’d have something which could have the best of both\nworlds! Sorry, but successful design just doesn’t happen like that. You need\nthe big picture, and to have the big picture you need to fully<\/em>\nunderstand the architecture of the two systems you’re trying to bridge.<\/p>\n\n

P.S. Peter Lindberg\nspotted<\/a>\na James Fallen poem relevant to this topic;<\/p>\n\n

\nEvery task involves constraint,\nSolve the thing without complaint;\nThere are magic links and chains\nForged to loose our rigid brains.\nStructures, structures, though they bind,\nStrangely liberate the mind.\n<\/pre>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I have the utmost respect for Don Box and his work, but I have to wonder whether he’s pulling my chain, or just honestly missing the point about the value of architectural constraints when he writes; BTW, while I do claim that you can solve the majority of the world’s problems using an arbitrary handful […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.markbaker.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.markbaker.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.markbaker.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.markbaker.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.markbaker.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.markbaker.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.markbaker.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.markbaker.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.markbaker.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}