Why The Walled Garden and Prairie: Difference between revisions

From G30 Consultancy
Jump to navigationJump to search
Import from Confluence
Tags: Reverted 2017 source edit
Blanked the page
Tags: Blanking Manual revert 2017 source edit
Line 1: Line 1:
**Why Walled Garden and The Prairie** {#TheWalledGardenandPrairie-WhyWalledGardenandThePrairie}
-------------------------------------


This
[https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/285437-what-is-in-mind-is-a-sort-of-chautauqua-that-s-the Chautauqua]
is a series on what is generally seen as two major incompatible views on
how to design, implement and operate information systems. The aim is to
explore how both general approaches make sense in different ways and in
combination rather than in antagonism. In choosing Walled Garden and
Prairie to categorise these two general approaches it might seem that I
have a negative bias to one or the other, that really isn\'t where this
is coming from. Walled Garden is often treated as a derogatory term,
with hard perimeters, command and control hierarchies and long term
planning but its also (in its original use) about providing the right
conditions for different plants with different requirements and a
structured navigation which allows maintenance, gardening without
obstructing or affecting the rest of the Garden. In its way the Prairie
might seem without controls, borders, vulnerable and inefficient but
it\'s also resilient because there is no single point of failure and
burning it down periodically keeps it healthy.
If you want to think of these two views as being \'Enterprise
Architecture\' on the one hand and \'Startup Scrum like Good Enough for
Now\' on the other then that\'s fine so long as you also think about how
each view can inform and be integrated into the other. Its that I\'d
like to describe.
The Chatauqua will meander through the current practices and arguments
using this metaphor. They\'re abstractions and like all abstractions
leaky. But we won\'t worry about that the metaphor will stay useful. But
why Chatauqua?
When I was around 18^\*^ my local library in
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maghull Maghull] got a
copy of [https://www.univie.ac.at/Anglistik/easyrider/data/zen_and_the_art_of_motorcycle_ma.htm Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
Maintenance] which had just been published. It was in the small Philosophy section
which along with obscure foreign authors I used to backfill my education
like a magpie and the picture on the back of a low slung motorbike with
Pirsig and his son doing the thousand mile stare in monochrome was as
shiny a book as I\'d seen. Pirsig\'s peeling away of the layers of
Classical and Romantic aspects and exposing Quality as the mutually
supporting and unifying glue has stayed with me since. That and the
anecdotes around engineering and writing that I\'ll repeat with the dole
regularity of an old fart. Pirsig calls his book a
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chautauqua Chatauqua] from the travelling circus of educational talks and demonstrations of
the 19th Century, a wagon train of TED Talks. That seems to describe
what I\'m intending to do and its all the more relevant (to me at
least), that it was last year (2017) that Pirsig died.
Whether he\'d enjoy or approve it though I don\'t know.
-  [Walls and Trust Nothing]
-  [Interfaces All the Way Down]
:::
\
------------------------------------------------------------------------
^\*In\ writing\ this\ I\ was\ convinced\ that\ I\ was\ around\ 15\ when\ I\ read\ this\ but\ the\ Universe\ I\ appear\ to\ be\ in\ at\ the\ moment\ has\ it\ in\ 1974\ when\ I\ was\ 18.\ I\ don\'t\ think\ this\ is\ materially\ a\ difference\ to\ anyone\ else\ but\ its\ one\ of\ those\ jarring\ hillocks\ that\ you\ come\ across\ between\ your\ personal\ history\ of\ the\ world\ and\ its\ \'objective\'\ truth.^
\
**ORCID** [https://orcid.org/sites/default/files/images/orcid_16x16.png] [https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3617-0891 orcid.org/0000-0002-3617-0891]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Revision as of 14:41, 5 September 2024