When creating, there are two (main) vectors: original and compelling. Imagine "Compelling" on the y axis, and "Original/Unique" on the x axis.
We've found a lot of patterns that make things compelling. Next time you watch a movie, set a timer on your watch. At almost exactly ten minutes into the film the exposition and character build up finishes and the plot begins. Why? Because that's been found to be a compelling amount of time to do that. Take more time, and you bore the audience, less and you risk losing them because they don't identify with the characters enough.
But notice I said "most movies". Because it's compelling, it's used often and that makes it unoriginal. Pop songs are all around three minutes and the hook comes at a certain time into the song, every time. So when you make something compelling, you are usually taking away from its originality. If you go for originality, you risk that people won't like it as much.
Genius is when you can make something both unique and compelling. It's rare. And then it's copied to the point where it soon becomes unoriginal. But that moment, when it's beautiful and you've never seen anything like it - that's a wonderful moment.
What Alexander is bringing up is that, while Hollywood films and pop music favors compelling over original, architects usually favor creating something original at the expense of it being compelling. And he is saying that quality without a name is the creation of artifacts that people actually like.
If I remember right, Kent Beck introduced Erich Gamma to Alexander's ideas with the notion of letting users create their experience in software. Erich took it in a different direction obviously, but I can't help but think that Kent had the stronger instinct of what Alexander was trying to say.
We have to remember when creating that startup: It has to be original or everyone will have done it already, but it's additionally about creating something that people will want. And there's the rub. First because that's extraordinarily difficult. But also because the original part is such an extension of your individuality -- it's you -- that then to modify it to adjust it to reflect what to people will like, means taking yourself out of that very personal work.
One thought though: is it really just genius, and the only way to get to that top right compelling and unique state by just jumping there?
Feels like it would be more of a combination: someone tries a unique idea and it's not compelling. Someone else sees this idea, but changes something about it, so it's now unique and slightly compelling. This gets repeated until you end up with something unique and compelling. This new idea now gets copied exactly, and it slowly moves from the top right to the bottom right - compelling but non-unique.
ie. Is this not a continuous process curve innate in all invention? The only real effect might be the speed of movement along the curve - someone (a genius) may be able to iterate across the curve by himself by building on his own ideas?
If this is true, then genius is not really required - all that we require is constant iteration of bad unique ideas until they become something good. Seems to hold up in reality - the more people involved in something, the quicker it gets somewhere good, as there are more iterations happening.
Emacs is often talked about as a structure that does have some kind of quality without a name. But it doesn't make sense to attribute that to any individual genius. The essence of Emacs is its openness.
I think there's some important thing to say about the arbitrariness of distinctions like compile-time/run-time, and the architectural implications of "open source," etc, but I don't have time to think it through...
Another example is Blender (3D). Created with and by the people who are using it (http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Source/Architecture). I think it's one of the best software programs I've ever seen. Both compelling and Original/Unique.
In my opinion it is a gross misreading of Alexander to see him as advocating hedonism. His work is not based upon what people like, but what makes their lives better moment by moment. It is an approach to functionalism which is not task based but instead based upon consideration of universal social and emotional needs of each individual.
His patterns seek toward satisfaction not pleasure. Pleasure is a byproduct, of respect for the individual"s humanity and the emotional state of satisfaction that results. Pleasure is not a result of response to taste or fashion.
You bring up an interesting point. I didn't qualify compelling but, you're right, it can mean many things and have many aspects. You can say both Rebecca Black's Friday and Bach's Goldberg Variations are compelling, but they are night and day different.
Software, like architecture, usually doesn't have the type of hedonism you're speaking about (as far as I can tell). What people like is what they enjoy using. They often may not even know it, but find they're using it all the time, for example. And that is exactly that quality/satisfaction that you're talking about.
We've found a lot of patterns that make things compelling. Next time you watch a movie, set a timer on your watch. At almost exactly ten minutes into the film the exposition and character build up finishes and the plot begins. Why? Because that's been found to be a compelling amount of time to do that. Take more time, and you bore the audience, less and you risk losing them because they don't identify with the characters enough.
But notice I said "most movies". Because it's compelling, it's used often and that makes it unoriginal. Pop songs are all around three minutes and the hook comes at a certain time into the song, every time. So when you make something compelling, you are usually taking away from its originality. If you go for originality, you risk that people won't like it as much.
Genius is when you can make something both unique and compelling. It's rare. And then it's copied to the point where it soon becomes unoriginal. But that moment, when it's beautiful and you've never seen anything like it - that's a wonderful moment.
What Alexander is bringing up is that, while Hollywood films and pop music favors compelling over original, architects usually favor creating something original at the expense of it being compelling. And he is saying that quality without a name is the creation of artifacts that people actually like.
If I remember right, Kent Beck introduced Erich Gamma to Alexander's ideas with the notion of letting users create their experience in software. Erich took it in a different direction obviously, but I can't help but think that Kent had the stronger instinct of what Alexander was trying to say.
We have to remember when creating that startup: It has to be original or everyone will have done it already, but it's additionally about creating something that people will want. And there's the rub. First because that's extraordinarily difficult. But also because the original part is such an extension of your individuality -- it's you -- that then to modify it to adjust it to reflect what to people will like, means taking yourself out of that very personal work.