Introduction
I want to stand on the shoulders of giants and I want to stand on the shoulders NOW!
And not just any shoulders, but only on the shoulders of the giants who know all about the project I'm working on right now!
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Is this a tall order or what?
Well, what do the giants do that we really want?
They see patterns and then describe the patterns.
We just want the right set of patterns appropriate for the time and place.
This app is a first step towards helping you climb on shoulders and see what the giants see.
The current revision looks at the work of one giant - Christopher Alexander and one work - A Pattern Language - and summarizes and categorizes each pattern.
In many ways the app is trivial. All it does is to simplify simplicity.
On the other hand (shoulder?), the work is of interest because it is produced through the use of computer programming - essential data has been abstracted and extracted from the original work almpost entirely by algorithm.
Furthermore a new set of data has been created - including summaries, tags and links - by algorithm. This material can be used to for proof-checking and further evidence gathering.
The next (quite big) step is to carry out similar processes on the works of other giants. Possibilities include Andrea Palladio's I quattro libri dell'architettura and the OSHA regulations for construction.
The eventual idea is that you enter a tag such as 'window' and you are provided by the guidance of a good number of big thinkers who can clearly see through windows.
The issue with standing on shoulders is that it can be easy to fall off. Typical causes might include:
- Program-generated data has to mix with mechanical-Turk data with crowd-sourced data with domain-expert data
- Full revision control for every aspect of the app
- Ease of user experience
- Openness and peer-review capabilities
- Support for varying varieties of tagging and taxonomies and ontologies
- Playing nice with intellectual property issues
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Where are the shoulders of the giants on what I have written here?
Who well considers the patterns of patterns?
CS Pierce? Suggestions welcomed
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All work: MIT license. Or GPL. You choose.
Theo Armour ~ 2012-04-13