Generative sequences in traditional society
The Samoan canoe chant is an example of a generative sequence. It generates canoes. The generative sequence is essentially the same each time that it is used, but each canoe that is generated is unique.
This is what imperative code is: the exact same sequence of instructions, which then generated unique outputs based on the inputs. Now, that’s also what functional code is as well, isn’t it?
The operations of the generative sequence guarantee success for a wide variety of conditions, making it possible for the designers and builders to create unique canoes each time they use the process, because of the way the successive operations act on one another and on the context (which is always unique).
Handling of cases off the “happy path” — also common in code. Here he implies the monadic nature of the code (successive operations act on one another), which makes it “more” imperative.
Because the generative sequence is based on the proper unfolding of centers for the canoe, the canoe comes out coherent.
This is a useful description of how individual properties/transformations apply to individual steps in the example process described by the Samoan canoe chant:
First the tree is trimmed (by [Simplification]).
Then the tree trunk is hollowed out (by [Deep interlock], [Strong centers], and [Positive space]).
Then the front of the canoe is sharpened ([Gradients], [Boundary], and [Good shape]).
Then the shape of the hull as a whole is refined ([Good shape], [Local symmetries], and [Roughness]).
Then further differentiation forms the seats ([Strong centers], [Alternating repetition], and [Deep interlock]) and so on.
The differentiation goes forward following the scheme of the fundamental process very closely, and it is because of this progressive differentiation — because it unfolds so smoothly, from one step to the next, each step perfectly paving the way for the next — that the canoe as a whole can become beautiful.
Is it necessary to build the same thing several times to get good at it and learn the sequence? Is a problem with software that we too often try to build new things and we haven’t built the same thing over and over again often enough to have figured out the proper sequence?
#book/The Nature of Order/2 The process of creating life/11 The sequence of unfolding#