Good questions elicit useful answers...

My good friend Ross Ishikawa - I was a fellow student of Chris. Alexander's with him in '89, had some questions about the proposal (see earlier postings), which made me think more clearly - hopefully the answers will be illuminating too:

"I'm curious what you see as the end product of this idea? Is it primarily an educational tool, a proactive tool?"

Wikitect exists!

Wow!

Ward Cunningham emailed me to tell me that he had already built a tool that met many of the important characteristics suggested in my spec.

He calls it wikitect.

Wikitect would seem to meet and even exceed my ambitions - even to the extent of '.dot' coded export!

I am immensely excited to think that it exists already - my best hope was that I could get some sort of open source project started - and as a non-programmer I was unsure that I would be well placed to push such a project along...

the Proposition

I have been thinking about the ideas here for a while. I'd been aware of Ward Cunningham and the software patterns community for some time, and eventually decided that this was something they might be interested in.

I am not a programmer of any but a rudimentary sort, and am not able to implement the ideas set out here, but I am clear about what is required. I am hoping that you may have some suggestions as to where to take this proposal.

WHERE I'M COMING FROM

I'm an architect. I studied with Chris Alexander in the late '80's, and have used patterns for 20 years or so.

In the last few years I have been thinking about complexity and complex systems, and how poorly humans are equipped to address these in any ways that are not highly reductive.

First proposal for LetsMakeAPlan tool

I have been having those slightly crazy - 'this system can actually address ALL problems!" moments about the following ideas - they are also the crystallisation of 10 years or more of thinking, so although the headline is fairly straightforward, the background reasoning is detailed and dense - so please bear with me - you can just read the stuff in bold to get the gist....

Simply, the practical aspect of the project is this:
A working tool, along the lines of a wiki, which supports individuals working together on the development of a 'pattern language'.
[You may have heard of patterns as an approach to computer programming - this was inspired by my teachers' original work, which led indirectly to 'wiki' tools being developed.]

The tool could be used immediately to support the development, management and democratic engagement with the policies - from principles down to opening hours - of our small school startup. This can be a 'test-bed'.

To: Dave Pollard

Dear Dave

I've just come across your blog, via a link while looking into online tools to support a new 'sustainable communities' initiative I am planning here in London.

I am excited and interested to come across someone who is particularly interested in general approaches to ways for humans to address complexity intelligently.

It is clear to me, as it is to you, that this is urgently necessary, as we have reached a point where tools developed on the basis of radically simplified approaches to reality (using the rational method of addressing only very limited subsets of questions, and rigourously excluding consideration of wider implications ) have become so powerful and widely used, that the inevitable 'unintended consequences' (which occur whenever interventions are made into a truly complex system) threaten to swamp us.