“
Software developers lament ``If only software engineering could
be more like X ...'', where X is any design-intensive
profession with a longer and apparently more successful history than
software. It is therefore both comforting and troubling to discover
that the same fundamental philosophical, methodological, and pragmatic
concerns arise in all of these Xs (see, for example,
[23,33,43,46,18,45,48,50]).
In part because it is considered as much artistry as engineering,
writings about architecture have most extensively explored and argued
out the basic underpinnings of design. Even within this context, the
ideas of the architect Christopher Alexander stand out as penetrating,
and bear compelling implications for software design.
” source...