Good analogy

In the Programmer Humor section of Reddit, a smart metaphor from India:

Bangalore as a city seems to be like an application that was coded entirely on production. And different releases were attached later on through adhoc APIs.

To some extent this describes every city, but the global/modular distinction is valid. I’ve made this analogy before WITHOUT thinking in terms of software. The software connection definitely adds value.

Most midwestern cities are C++. Start with an original townsite defined around Main() Street. Main() is fairly small and compact, built all at once with houses of similar cost and size. Each boom added new Classes. Each Class was built all at once, filling its entire plat with houses of similar cost and size. The API to the Class (road or streetcar track) was defined at construction with terminals at both ends.

Spokane is like a BASICA program, fully global. The plat was laid out full size in 1910. Since 1910, houses have been infilled randomly through the entire plat, with no respect for cost or size and no REMS.

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Looking back at the earlier blog entries under the Infill and Heimatkunde tags…. From 2012 to 2019 I had a positive attitude toward this neighborhood, but not toward the insane city “government”. I was interacting with people in a friendly way, observing plants and birds and bugs, and thinking about houses. All positivity disappeared in 2020. Even the Heimatkunde tag disappeared after the first few months of NAZI TORTURE.

After you find out that ALL powerful people are demons eagerly and voraciously committing NAZI TORTURE, you keep your head down, squint your eyes, and try to survive. Everyone had the same experience, so ordinary friendliness and trust disappeared. Everyone is guarded and cautious, trying to survive without incurring the wrath of the monsters.

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Later thought: Manhattan was even closer to C++. There were three major constructors: Johnson, Phelps, and Rader. Everyone recognized their houses as class definitions. Johnson was simple frame houses with lots of color; Phelps was long brick ranches, drab and repetitive; Rader was smaller brick houses with high-quality interiors. The Johnson class had three instantiations: Johnson::Strong, Johnson::Gross and Johnson::Northview. The Phelps class was instantiated as Phelps::CollegeView, Phelps::Phelps, and Phelps::Himes. Rader had only one instantiation, Rader::Shelle.