Functionalism, aesthetics Was:(RE: I come to praise .join, not to bury it...)

[Alex Martelli]

"Clark C. Evans" <cce at clarkevans.com> wrote in message
news:mailman.985067371.2582.python-list at python.org...
> Alex Martelli [mailto:aleaxit at yahoo.com] wrote:
> > it DOES mean each of these professionals need not fall back
> > on vague generalities and empty hand-waving if and when their
> > design choices get challenged.
>
> I've been confronted on too many occasions where my
> "aesthetics" differed from another party's.  Perhaps
> our functions were different.  But in any case, I was
> able to clearly articulate what my functions were and
> why the form I choose supported those functions.

...which exactly matches my (optimistic:-) expectations
from a real professional (in _most_ fields; I would not
expect _all_ arts to be amenable to such patiently
spelled-out, verbalized analysis... just _most_:-).

> The other party typically rests soley on dogma,
> giving in to "god", "universal patterns", or "beauty"
> that I obviously don't comprehend.  Oh well.

I have some problems envisaging a realistic situation
where a technical design choice for a system's architecture
might be challenged on theological grounds, but I guess
that might happen, if one was in the business of designing
churches, for example!-)


> > Somebody who's unable to do anything but talk of aesthetics
> > when discussing a choice in the architecture of a software
> > component is simply not contributing to the discussion.  It
> > looks good to you, it looks bad to him, it looks indifferent
> > to her, yawn, great debate, now let's get beyond this to the
> > REAL meat of the issue, please -- the technical implications
> > of this, that, or the other choice in a specific matter.
>
> Most often those bringing up aesthetics need to go
> and do their homework, detailing those functions that
> they would expect or like to have from the software.
> And then an analysis as to how each form satisfies those
> particular functions.

Amen to that.  Should technology be shamefully hidden,
disappear from view, become invisible (a la Don Norman),
or should it be displayed, without either pride or shame,
exactly for what it is and does (a la Renzo Piano's,
Beaubourg first and foremost)?  I'm not qualified to
judge, I guess, but I _do_ know who designed Osaka's
Kansai Air Terminal (which survived the Kobe earthquake,
quite destructive even by Japanese standards), and who,
on the other hand, used to work for a computer company
whose newest, company-saving line of products later relied
on a brilliant new look shamelessly _displaying_ internals
and technology through colourful translucent exteriors:-).


> Another approach, is a user community survey, explaining
> both sides, the options and implications, and asking
> each user to think deeply before casting a vote.  Usually
> if there is any core "aesthetic" it will pop out of
> a stastical survey.

I'm less optimistic than you about the pragmatics of user
surveys, perhaps in part because of my personal experience
with them.  More than once, I've seen a firm saved by a
small dissenting group proceeding stealthily to develop
an alternative, user-survey-condemned architecture, while
the user-survey-blessed choice foundered (often on rocks
of excessive complexity and acute featuritis) -- when the
official product had to be canceled, indefinitely postponed,
or even recalled, the simpler, pure-technology-oriented,
stealthworks-developed alternate by the technonerds was
at hand to save the day.  I might even suggest that, in
some fields, a productive strategy might be to proceed to
determine by traditional means all that the users _say_
they want, then do exactly the opposite (but that would
be pure provocation on my part, so I won't:-).


Alex