{"id":770,"date":"2005-02-12T13:36:59","date_gmt":"2005-02-12T17:36:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theoreti.ca\/?p=770"},"modified":"2005-02-12T13:36:59","modified_gmt":"2005-02-12T17:36:59","slug":"pattern-languages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/?p=770","title":{"rendered":"Pattern Languages"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Unless you&#8217;ve been asleep, you will have noticed the spread of Christopher Alexander&#8217;s pattern theory through computing. In <a title=\"IEEE\" href=\"http:\/\/www.patternlanguage.com\/archive\/ieee\/ieeetext.htm\">The Origins of Pattern Theory: The Future of the Theory, And The Generation of a Living World <\/a> (a talk given in San Jose, California, at the 1996 ACM Conference on Object-Oriented Programs, Systems, Languages and Applications (OOPSLA)) he reflects on the theory and how it has taken root in computing.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The pattern language that we began creating in the 1970s had other essential features. First, it has a moral component. Second, it has the aim of creating coherence, morphological coherence in the things which are made with it. And third, it is generative: it allows people to create coherence, morally sound objects, and encourages and enables this process because of its emphasis on the coherence of the created whole.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\nThe uptake of pattern theory in software design raises a host of interesting issues:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>How and why did pattern theory cross so effectively from architecture to computing? How do theories in general cross disciplines? (See Foucault, Archaeology of Knowledge.)<\/li>\n<li>Is the turn to pattern theory another turn to essentialism &#8211; the search for depth, commonality, essence in the face of complexity?<\/li>\n<li>Is the moral dimension to Alexander&#8217;s pattern theory essential?<\/li>\n<li>Are there abstract patterns of patterns &#8211; philosophical patterns if you will?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unless you&#8217;ve been asleep, you will have noticed the spread of Christopher Alexander&#8217;s pattern theory through computing. In The Origins of Pattern Theory: The Future of the Theory, And The Generation of a Living World (a talk given in San Jose, California, at the 1996 ACM Conference on Object-Oriented Programs, Systems, Languages and Applications (OOPSLA)) &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/?p=770\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Pattern Languages<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-multimedia-theory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}