Designed as Designer

Designed as Designer

Richard P. Gabriel
IBM Research

Conceptual integrity is the key to good design

Fred Brooks says:

Conceptual integrity is the key to good design

The central problem…is to get conceptual integrity in
the design itself… –Fred Brooks, ooPSLA 2007 Keynote

In the past, good designs were typically made by
single minds or two minds

Fred Brooks says:

In the past, good designs were typically made by
single minds or two minds

If we look back then at the 19th century and the things
that happened—the cartwright and the textile
machinery, Stephenson (the train), Brunel’s bridges
and railway, Edison, Ford, the Wright brothers, etc—
these were very largely the designs of single designers
or, in the case of the Wright brothers, pairs.
–Fred Brooks, ooPSLA 2007 Keynote

Works of art are not made by teams, but by individuals alone

Fred Brooks says:

Works of art are not made by teams, but by individuals alone

Now if we look back at the history of human production and
culture, most works of art have not been made [by teams].
And that’s true whether we look at literature, whether we look
at music—although we have Gilbert and Sullivan, notice
that one did the words and one did the music—
Brunelleschi’s dome, Michelangelo’s tremendous works, the
paintings—there are some paintings by two painters; one did
the creatures and one did the landscape kinda thing, this
careful division of labor—and the exceptions to the notion
that most of the great works we know of were done by one
mind are in fact done by two minds and not by teams.

Brunelleschi’s dome is a perfect example

Fred Brooks says:

Brunelleschi’s dome is a perfect example

…modern scholars now recognize that the works of Homer…are…the works of
one mind.…[T]he important poem Beowulf is…a literary work…of one mind.
As I say the exceptions are two, and two is a magic number. There are many,
many jobs in the world that are designed for two people: the carpenter and the
carpenter’s helper, the electrician and the electrician’s helper. And I think our Lord
knew what He was doing when He made marriage work for two.

But now let’s look at some of these magniﬁcent works.

Brunelleschi’s dome—and many of you have read the book—was a tremendous
creation, technically beyond what people believed possible. He had to produce a
working scale model before the people buying the project would even believe that it
could be built. And notice the scale of this building in comparison with the
surrounding buildings.

But Fred Brooks is not always right

Now, the second major reason why we do things in teams is
hurry to get to market. We all know the rule that the ﬁrst
person to market with a totally new innovation tends to
stabilize out with 40 or 45 percent of the share, and the rest
is divided up among the come latelys.

Total 6%

Pre-1940 6%
1940–1974 10%
Post-1974 4%

Traditional 3%
Digital / high-tech 8%

–Gerard J. Tellis & Peter N. Golder, Will and Vision

Market share of pioneers (as of 2000)

Total 9%

Pre-1940 8%
1940–1974 14%
Post-1974 6%

Traditional 7%

Pioneers who are current leaders (as of 2000)

Total 19 yrs

Pre-1940 30 yrs
1940–1974 17 yrs
Post-1974 5 yrs

Traditional 29 yrs
Digital / high-tech 7 yrs

Years between entry of pioneer and current leader (as of 2000)

First-to-Market Study Errors

investigators usually ignored pioneers who failed completely or left
the market

many studies suffer from self-report bias

there are definitional problems with some surveys trying to
determine first-to-market advantage

Total 64%

Pre-1940 72%
1940–1974 50%
Post-1974 56%

Traditional 71%

Failure Rate of Pioneers (as of 2000)

Current
Category Pioneer Interim Leader Leader (2000)
water, alkali and
Soap cassia oil (Babylon, Ivory, Dial Dove
2800 BC,)

Detergent Liquid Lux Joy, Ivory Dawn

Rheingold, Meister
Light Beer Trommer’s Red Letter Brau Bud LIght
Miller Light

Video Games Magnavox Odyssey Atari, Nintendo, Sega Sony

Tandy, Apple, IBM,
PCs MITS Compaq Dell

Wang, Easy Writer,
Word Processors IBM Memory Writer Wordstar, Word Word
Perfect

Online Service Providers CompuServe Prodigy AOL

Browsers WorldWideWeb Mosaic, Netscape Internet Explorer

Lombard, Ameritrade,
Online Stock Trading K. Aufhauser E*Trade Charles Schwartz

PC Operating Systems CP/M APPLE ][, DOS Windows

The seed was planted—the seed of doubt. Maybe Fred Brooks could be
wrong.

wrong.

Not wrong, really, but incomplete.

wrong.


Incomplete in his scholarship or depth of analysis.

wrong.



Or maybe he—as many of us do—looks a little too optimistically for
the real world to conﬁrm his ideas.

wrong.



Or maybe he—as many of us do—looks a little too optimistically for
the real world to conﬁrm his ideas.

Or he is not wrong but in situ examples are too messy to be perfect.
As G. B. Shaw could have said, they are too true to be good.

Ian Randall Wilson

Poet
Short story writer
Novelist
Executive in the ﬁlm industry(MGM, Sony Pictures)
Founder of 88: A Journal of Contemporary American Poetry
Founder and editor-in-chief of Hollyridge Press

First we had a couple of feelers down at Tom’s place,
There was old Tom, boiled to the eyes, blind,
(Don’t you remember that time after a dance,
Top hats and all, we and Silk Hat Harry,
And old Tom took us behind, brought out a bottle of ﬁzz,
With old Jane, Tom’s wife; and we got Joe to sing
“I’m proud of all the Irish blood that’s in me,
There’s not a man can say a word agin me”).

–T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land (deleted material)

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

–T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land

Here only flame upon flame
and black among the red sparks,
streaks of black and light
grown colorless

why did you turn back,
that hell should be reinhabited
of myself thus
swept into nothingness?

why did you turn back?
why did you glance back?
why did you hesitate for that moment?
why did you bend your face
caught with the flame of the upper earth,
above my face?
H. D.

(Now the cypress are swaying) (Now the lake in the distance)
(Now the view-from-above, the aerial attack of do you
remember?)—

now the glance reaching her shoreline wanting only to be recalled,
now the glance reaching her shoreline wanting only to be taken in,

(somewhere the castle above the river)

(somewhere you holding this piece of paper)

Jorie Graham.

Lucille Clifton
Charity Randall prize
Jerome J. Shestack Prize
an Emmy
1984 Coretta Scott King Award.
First author with two books of poetry as ﬁnalists for the Pulitzer Prize in
the same year (1988)
Shelley Memorial Award
Lannan Literary Award for Poetry
National Book Award for Poetry
Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize; the $100,000 prize honors a living U.S. poet
whose “lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition.”

I have grown to understand narrative as a form of contemplation, a
complex and seemingly incongruous way of thinking. I come to know
my stories by writing my way into them. I focus on the characters
without trying to attach signiﬁcance to their actions. I do not look for
symbols. For as long as I can, I remain purposefully blind to the
machinery of the story and only partially cognizant of the world my
story creates. I work from a kind of half-knowledge.
–Robert Boswell, The Half-Known World

In the drafts that follow, I listen to what has made it to the page.
Invariably, things have arrived that I did not invite, and they are
often the most interesting things in the story. By refusing to fully
know the world, I hope to discover unusual formations in the
landscape, and strange desires in the characters. By declining to
analyze the story, I hope to keep it open to surprise. Each new draft
revises the world but does not explain or deﬁne it. I work through
many drafts, progressively abandoning the familiar. What I can see
is always dwarfed by what I cannot know. What the characters come
to understand never surpasses that which they cannot grasp. The
world remains half-known. –Robert Boswell, The Half-Known World

There can be no discovery in a world where everything is known. A
crucial part of the writing endeavor is to practice remaining in the
dark. –Robert Boswell, The Half-Known World

You may wonder where plot is in all this. The answer… is
nowhere…. I believe plotting and the spontaneity of real creation
aren’t compatible…. I want you to understand that my basic belief
about the making of stories is that they pretty much make themselves.
The job of the writer is to give them a place to grow.
–Stephen King, On Writing

anyone can recognize conceptual integrity in a series of things


Hiding Place


Hiding Place

Third Dimension


Hiding Place

Third Dimension

s. e. k. s.


Hiding Place Liquefaction

Third Dimension

s. e. k. s.



Third Dimension Jerry Chapman

s. e. k. s.



Third Dimension Jerry Chapman

s. e. k. s. Retromotive

conceptual integrity = the identity of the song


Third Dimension Jerry Chapman Blue Öyster Cult

s. e. k. s. Retromotive

If you can recognize conceptual integrity in comparisons,
you can learn to recognize it alone

Center: A center is any place in a poem that attracts attention; centers can
arise from the action/interaction of these craft elements: stress/unstress;
sound; unit of syntax; rhyme; repeated words and sounds; line; ﬁrst word in
a line; last word in a line; stanza; image; metaphor and other ﬁgures; title; the
poem itself; historical or political elements; revealed metaphysics; meaning
Levels of Scale: centers at all levels of scale
Strong Center: a center related to many other centers
Boundaries: separates a center from other centers, focuses attention on the
separated center, is itself made of centers
Alternating Repetition: strong centers repeated with alternating centers; not
simple repeating; pattern with variation
Positive Space: a center that moves outward from itself, seemingly oozing
life rather than collapsing on itself
Good Shape: a center that is beautiful by itself

Local Symmetries: a center with another nearby which is somehow an echo
Deep Interlock and Ambiguity: centers that are hard to pull apart; centers
that derive power from surrounding centers; centers that cannot be removed
without diminishment; centers that are part of several others
Contrast: diﬀerentiation, distinctness, discernible opposites
Gradients: softness; qualities vary subtly, gradually, slowly
Roughness: a certain ease; the inessential is left messy
Echoes: family resemblance not exact replication
The Void: stillness or literally a quiet point
Simplicity and Inner Calm: all irrelevant parts are gone; it is as simple and
spare as it can be and still retain its life; nothing more can be removed; each
part seems simple and simply made
Not-Separateness: at one with the world, and not separate from it

Lourdes
Alternating Repetition & Echoes (”miracles”)
Strong Center
There are miracles that nobody survives
sense? Observers of to remember where or when
And these are the only true miracles miracles
are hopeful
sing-song Since we never hear about them
not Rough
weak centers Contrast
Boundary & (miracles/common)
Since we never hear about them
(”them”)
Deep Interlock
and Ambiguity It increases their chance of being common Local Symmetry
Echoes
(”...of(f )”)
Everyday things without witness without (”without”...”without”)

Alternating
Us even how absently close we brush

Gradient &
weak/ambiguity Repetition (”wit”)
enjambment
Strong Center Teeth sneeze cook supper mail post Boundary (”without/us”)
confusing enjambment
Cards in contrast o cial miracles take Boundary (”post/cards”)

Contrast (hopeful—hopeless)
A far o locale veri able visitable Echoes (v and “able”)

Some backwater never heard before of since
Strong Center Roughness
Alternating (”head before of”)

Repetition & Not pop the map but part the pilgrim’s lips it noise
(line)
Local Symmetries
([tpp] [ptp] [tpp]) Springs up hospitals hotdog stands pour in
boring
Echoes (stresses) Testeroniacs pimple victims even Alternating
Contrast
(”springs up” For credentials cripples pour in Repetition
“pours in”) (”pour in”)
not a word Echoes

Echoes
Their limbs hung all whichway on them
(sounds of “pimple”
and ”cripples”)
Signslats nailed on a slanting Local Symmetry & Echoes
(”Signslats” “slanting”)

Roughness
Direction-post at a muddy crossroads
Echoes (D t p t dd d)
In the boondocks of a forgotten place

weaker center than previous stanza Echoes (”crossroads”“boondocks”)
image of hopelessness

Bill Knott

Lourdes

There are miracles that nobody survives
sense? Observers of to remember where or when
And these are the only true miracles
sing-song Since we never hear about them
not Rough
weak centers
Since we never hear about them
(”them”)

It increases their chance of being common
Everyday things without witness without
weak/ambiguity Us even how absently close we brush

Teeth sneeze cook supper mail post
Cards in contrast o cial miracles take Boundary (”post/cards”)
A far o locale veri able visitable
Some backwater never heard before of since

Not pop the map but part the pilgrim’s lips it
Springs up hospitals hotdog stands pour in
boring
Testeroniacs pimple victims even Alternating
For credentials cripples pour in Repetition
(”pour in”)
not a word
Their limbs hung all whichway on them
Signslats nailed on a slanting
Direction-post at a muddy crossroads

weaker center than previous stanza

Lourdes

sense fixed There are miracles that nobody survives
sense? No one comes screaming of where what when
sing-song fixed And these are the only true miracles
sing-song Since we never hear tell about them— weak end words
not Rough
weak centers remain (”—” added)
(”them”)
Since we never hear tell about them
It increases their chance of being common
Everyday events without witness without
sense fixed
weak/ambiguity Us even—how absently close we brush
Boundary fixed
Teeth sneeze cook supper mail postcards

}
weak end word now
In contrast o cial miracles take a far Boundary (”post/cards”)
embedded
O locale some backwater—or podunk
Echoes retained,
Which although unveri able is visitable better end words,
better sense

weak end word
Not pop the map but part the pilgrim’s weak end words
gone
wrapped Lips it springs up hospitals hot dog
boring
closer to real word
Stands pour in testosteroniacs pimple Alternating
Victims but most of all cripples—their better weak
Repetition
end word in”)
(”pour
not a word
Limbs misled and skewed and crisscross
Like—roadsigns that point everywhere
On a signpost bent over a weedy crossroads

weaker center than previous stanza
many Echoes, better noise, Strong Center, Void?

Robert Hass
Yale Series of Younger Poets Award
William Carlos Williams Award
National Book Critics Circle Award
MacArthur Fellowship
National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry
National Book Award Winner, Poetry
Pulitzer Prize co-winner, Poetry
Two-term US Poet Laureate

The history of architecture, especially in the period from 1600 to the
present, and culminating in the thought of the 20th century, has been
based on the idea that the architect’s vision arises, almost spontaneously,
and at all events suddenly in the breast of the architect—a vision
obtained from inspiration that arrives fully ﬂedged from “thin air”—
and that the quality, depth, and importance of the architect’s vision comes
from this mysterious moment. Contemporary students tremble as they
try to attain this mystery.
–Christopher Alexander, The Nature of Order

Yet if [my] observations…are held to be true about the
production of living structure, and if, as I have suggested, living
structure always arises slowly, by successive transformations of
what exists, gradually, gradually, and then decisively changes
slowly until a new thing is born, then the view of the unfettered
architect-creator that has been fostered in the last 400 years
must be completely wrong.
–Christopher Alexander, The Nature of Order

It is interesting that Brunelleschi receives much credit for coming up
with the tension ring concept, although he only oversaw their
construction. The tension rings were proposed by Neri before Filippo
got involved. It aﬃrms the beneﬁts of good public relations and
benevolent historians. –Jim Atkins, Il Duomo: Brunelleschi and the
Dome of Santa Maria del Fiore

1914 0
1915 4
1916 3
1917 2
1918 11
1919 29
1920 54
1921 59
1922 35
1957 14 1923 41
1958 28 1924 46
1959 16 1925 25
1960 39 1926 47
1961 61 1927 60
1962 33 1928 54
1963 23 1929 46
1964 26 1930 49
1965 8 1931 46
1966 13 1932 41
1967 9 1933 34
1968 5 1934 22
1935 6

Roger Maris Babe Ruth

Subjects told: because of a budget
problem, only one of the two
anagram solvers was being paid,
and that one by random selection

Tom was
randomly
chosen to be
paid

Tom was Bill was
randomly randomly
chosen to be chosen to be
paid paid

Tom is Bill is
better! better!

Tom was Bill was
randomly randomly
chosen to be chosen to be
paid paid

Test subjects told only 1 puzzle solver
was being paid, and that by random
selection
Subjects broken in 2 groups

This group told that This group told that
Tom was randomly Bill was randomly
chosen to be paid chosen to be paid
Both groups watch the same
scripted performance that shows no
diﬀerence in skill level
This group This group
chooses Tom as chooses Bill as
more skilled more skilled

(define factorial
(lambda (n)
(if (= n 0) 1 (* n (factorial (- n 1))))))

(define factorial
(lambda (n)
(if (= n 0) 1 (* n (factorial (- n 1))))))

(define actorial
(alpha (n c)
(if (= n 0) (c 1) (actorial
(- n 1)
(alpha (f) (c (* f n)))))))

Then came a crucial discovery—one that, to us, illustrates the value
of experimentation in language design. On inspecting the code for
apply, once they got it working correctly, Sussman and Steele were
astonished to discover that the codes in apply for function application
and for actor invocation were identical! Further inspection of other
parts of the interpreter, such as the code for creating functions and
actors, conﬁrmed this insight: the fact that functions were intended to
return values and actors were not made no diﬀerence anywhere in
their implementation.…But the lambda and alpha mechanisms
were themselves identical, and from this Sussman and Steele
concluded that actors and closures were the same concept.

Designed as Designer
Richard P. Gabriel

Designed as Designer

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