I sent a question out to Tobias Mayer and he kindly responded:
Q. The best things in life are all inefficient. How do you reconcile inefficiency and ‘optimization / lean / agile’ in your life and maybe even commercial work? And to what end? I haven’t really figured it out but found a clue in the “timeless way of building”. Curious: What do you think?
Neal Taylor, Cambridge, GBR
Hi Neal. I haven’t read A Timeless Way of Building but it sounds as if you have, so in some ways you are answering your own question here. I have however owned a copy of Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language for a few decades now, and occasionally I will dip into it (hardly a book to read cover to cover!) From those dippings I can say that this writer/thinker is streets ahead of most people in the Agile space and I would highly recommend his work. I don’t suppose Alexander would say he’s “figured it out” either, but he is certainly, like you, on a journey of discovery. The world doesn’t stay still so “optimising” it is rather a fool’s endeavour. Just think big while enjoying the small. joy
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He’s probably right, maybe I was answering my own question, but, nonetheless, it’s been great to see that he’s also familiar with the work of Christopher Alexander! I pondered a bit more …
Last week, I was talking to my cousin about a kitchen worktop that I’m installing. He couldn’t believe that I was using a salvaged teak worktop, and not something like glossy granite (‘all you need to do is wipe it clean and not worry about it’). I thought back to the Timeless Way of Building. It’s precisely because the wood is soft that it requires maintenance, care and looking after. It’s precisely all the indentations and marks on the wood that end up becoming the the much-prized character we seek day to day. And incidentally, it’s the slight inherent vulnerability and inefficiency that makes it actually longer lasting (timeless!). As Alexander writes to some effect: objects that appear unbreakable or permanent don’t get looked after.
Things that are too optimized are neglected. I imagine also, that optimized things become too difficult to look after. I cannot smooth granite without industrial equipment. I can, however, sand down a worktop and oil it.
What about the timelessness of things we create in the digital sphere? I can update texts and code on a simple website and someone else can too. What about highly designed and optimized digital apps or services? They seem more like the granite worktops to be replaced entirely rather than salvaged and looked after by hobbyists and tinkerers.
How would you create a timeless digital piece of work?