README

Software that has the Quality Without a Name
============================================

This is an essay that appeared originally in the book, "Open Advice",
edited by Lydia Pintscher [1].  Later, I gave a presentation about
this during the 2011 Desktop Summit in Berlin [2].

This essay is about my journey through the theories of Christopher
Alexander, a mathematician and architect who (re)discovered how to
make buildings that are comfortable, functional, and psychologically
nourishing.  Alexander's work was then used as a basis for the
well-known "Refactoring" and "Design Patterns" books, which are
familiar to many programmers.

My intention is to turn this essay into a more substantial work, with
specific examples about software that exhibits the qualities that
Alexander talks about.

The web page for this is at http://people.gnome.org/~federico/docs/software-with-qwan/

Feel free to mail me:  Federico Mena Quintero <federico@gnome.org>


[1] Open Advice book with the original essay:
http://open-advice.org/

[2] Presentation on Software that has the Quality Without a Name:
http://people.gnome.org/~federico/docs/2011-Desktop-Summit/qwan/html/index.html