Talk:Christopher Alexander

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Sara Ishikawa[edit]

Both Chris and Sara taught me while I was at Cal. Sara was not Christerpher's student, they were colleagues. Chris started teaching in 1963, Sara started teaching there in 1960. APL was not published until 1977. Pearl2525 (talk) 18:54, 1 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Untitled[edit]

We probably need an article for

*Alexander, Christopher, (1822-1882), Victorian architect

who apparently has had an entry on List of people by name: Ale#People surnamed Alexander longer than this one has, and who accidentally got linked to this article.
--Jerzy (t) 07:21, 2004 Oct 6 (UTC)

Current residence in Sussex - why delete this info?[edit]

Hi. I just listened to an hour-long broadcast of an interview with Christopher Alexander on CBC Radio the other evening. It was taped at C.A.'s resiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain—Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.81.90.114 (talk) 15:49, 14 November 2005 (UTC) Sussex. Why delete this bit of info (his place of residence) from the article?[reply]

I'm not challenging the reason, mind you. Just curious what the reason is.

J.R.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Joel Russ (talk • contribs) 22:30, 26 October 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Influence on wiki[edit]

The article says: "The Wiki is just one of the results of Alexander's influence on computing, and it is appropriate that we use it to collect notes on the subject." To my understanding, WikiWikiWebs were developed completedly unaware of Alexander and his theories. I suggest to completely remove this sentence. Is anyone able to specify, what the link of Alexander and Wikis is?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.61.138.99 (talk) 12:04, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

From Wiki: Wiki software originated in the design pattern community as a way of writing and discussing pattern languages. The WikiWikiWeb was the first wiki, established by Ward Cunningham... See also Christoper Alexander's page on WikiWikiWeb itself: ChristopherAlexander zenned 19:59, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I would say the WikiWikiWeb itself and work on design patterns coevolved, but the ideas behind Ward's wiki definitely predated the widespread awareness of Alexander's work. Ward himself traces the idea to the development of ZOG in 1972, five years before A Pattern Language appeared ([1]). So I would say that, yes, the claim above is a little anachronistic. There were a lot of people taking various approached to hypertext in the 60s and 70s. But the actual WikiWikiWeb itself definitely developed in an Alexander-steeped context. So it's a judgment call. That last section of the article seems a little iffy, though, I agree. rodii 17:22, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Center for Environmental Structure[edit]

Are there any good references to explain CA's association with CES and the new CES in Europe?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.239.1.89 (talk) 22:12, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hacking[edit]

I just noticed that someone from IP address 216.146.243.76 got in and damaged Christopher Alexander's biography. What is the mechanism for banning specific IP addresses? I reverted the page to the previous saved version. Nikos.salingaros 23:30, 5 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Citing CS influence[edit]

In case anyone cares, Alexander writes in the Introduction to Richard P. Gabriel's Patterns of Software:

A year or two ago, I was astonished to get several letters from different people in the computer science field, telling me that my name was a household word in the software engineering community: specifically in the field of object-oriented technology. I had never even heard of object-oriented programming, and I had absolutely no idea that computer scientists knew my work, or found it useful or interesting; all this was a revelation to me. It was a pleasant revelation, but one that I did not really grasp at first; nor did I think much about it. I assumed the people who wrote to me were exaggerating anyway, out of politeness.
Then, one of these people, Marc Sewell from IBM in Atlanta, came to see me and told me much the same, to my face, in a discussion over coffee. Naturally, I assumed he too was exaggerating. When I expressed my surprise and doubts about the depth of this “alexandrian patterns movement,” he told me that in any given issue of The Journal of Object-Oriented Programming, there was almost certain to be some mention of my name. To prove it the next day he came with the current issue of The Journal of Object-Oriented Programming. There was in it, an article by Richard Gabriel, the essay that appears in this book as the chapter entitled “The Bead Game, Rugs, and Beauty.”

Might be a good reference. --Gwern (contribs) 22:27 3 August 2008 (GMT)

A City Is Not A Tree[edit]

His classic article "A City Is Not A Tree" should probably be added to the Writings and to the Published Works sections even though it is not a book. Christopher Alexander, A city is not tree, Architectural Forum 122 April (1965): No. 1, pages 58-61 and No. 2, pages 58-62. Tono-bungay (talk) 05:59, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed merge with Building Beauty[edit]

Unlikely to be notable on its own but might be useful to mention in founder's article (WP:ATD-M) So Why 07:10, 26 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Neutrality is disputed?[edit]

I am going to remove this tag, I see nothing in the discussion that challenges the neutrality of the article. I see some minor quibbles which have been resolved. By the way, for the origin of Wiki, see the paper by wiki inventor Ward Cunningham written with myself, "Wiki as Pattern Language," from a presentation Ward gave. Excerpt: "While the general concept of a wiki is thus extremely well known, somewhat less well known is the history of wiki development. Wikis were an outgrowth of the development of what is known as “pattern languages” in software, or as they are sometimes referred to, “design patterns.” As we describe below, they were in fact developed as tools to facilitate efficient sharing and modifying of patterns. In part for this reason, the structure of wikis itself bears a relationship to the structure of patterns and pattern languages – a relationship that, as we will also discuss, offers intriguing new opportunities." Cunningham, W. and Mehaffy, M.W. (2013). “Wiki as Pattern Language.” In Proceedings of the 20th Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs (PLoP'13), Monticello, Illinois, USA (October 2013). 15 pages. Michaelwestmehaffy (talk) 21:08, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]