Christopher Alexander
Christopher Alexander is an architect with interesting theories about design which have been applied to software engineering by OO gurus like Kent Beck and Ward Cunningham.
Alexander argues that users know more about the buildings they need than architects and should therefore have a major role in designing buildings. This idea was adapted to software by the OO gurus who invented agile software development. In agile software development processes like extreme programming, the role of the software user or customer is central to the development process.
In his book A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction, Christopher Alexander describes architectural patterns tested in the real world and reviewed by multiple architects for beauty and practicality. The idea that patterns can be applied to software design lead to the development of software design patterns by OO gurus such as Kent Beck and Erich Gamma.
Alexander's Notes on the Synthesis of Form also had a large influence on computer science, including on programming language design.
Ideas that came from Christopher Alexander
Books
- Christopher Alexander 1977 - A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction
- Christopher Alexander 1979 - The Timeless Way of Building
See also
- Kent Beck
- Ward Cunningham
- Pattern Language - Christopher Alexander's Website (Which really needs a Refactoring)
