What is the "timeless path of the process" (order) model? Great master Alexander.

"The road is good, the road is very famous. "This is the first two words in our forefathers ' moral classics, meaning: the word that can be described in words is not the word, and the word that can be named by name cannot be described properly." The ultimate thought is that, due to the limitations of human understanding, we are talking about the Tao, are only part of the real Tao, not a glimpse of the full picture. Of course I later in the "Quiet Sutra" said: "I do not know its name, strong name Yue ' Tao '." That is to say, "The word" is a bad one, but I am still the first to put this ultimate truth as ' Tao '. ”

"Tao" can be used to explain reasons, ways, truths, directions, methods, etc. According to Laozi, everything in the world has its essence and ultimate truth, but "I do not know its name, strong name Yue ' Tao '". In modern times, people have put "Tao" as the essence of things.

C. Alexander [1] in his book, "The Eternal Road of Architecture", said: "The building or city only set foot on the Eternal Road, will be vibrant." "Alexander described 253 architectural patterns in his book, and for the first time put forward the word" modal language ", which is" pedigree ". He led a series of 5 books on architectural design [2], of which the first two "timeless Ways of Architecture" and "Architectural model language" were most famous.

Many technicians and non-technical people have heard the pattern, such as management mode, thinking mode, business model, architectural model, design pattern and so on, has the infinite fascination to it. Many industries and fields also have a model to say. In the Software field, the famous object-oriented 23 design patterns are no one knows, nobody does not know. So what is the pattern?

Pattern is the methodology to solve a certain kind of problem. The method of solving some kind of problem is summed up to the theoretical height, which is the mode. It is a guide, a best practice for solving a problem of some kind. With the help of the model, we can use the experience and wisdom of predecessors to make excellent design plan, to achieve a multiplier effect. The pattern language is the pattern that corresponds to the collection of patterns that make the building wonderful and profound observation, the sum of the understandings of how to build. The eternal way of architecture lies in the architectural pattern, which is that we have the same knowledge of architecture, that is, the common pattern language.

A little digression:

In ancient times, according to the timeless way of architecture, farmers built their own houses and had their own models of intuition; in the industrial age, people thought they could not design, had to rely on designers, and designers were obsessed with popular patterns and designing things that were not energetic. So what we lack is a pattern, or we don't know how to identify a "dynamic" model. Is this not the case in the software world today? We've seen a lot of cool, so-called architects and designers who talk about patterns, but the software architecture they're designing is so bad that they don't even convert the architecture into a framework, which is far worse than the ancient farmers. We think, as software colleagues, if you want to truly become a good architect or designer, "the Eternal Road of Architecture" this book is required to read. It tells you what is the Tao, the way of the pattern. The word is the soul, the core. This way is to make it "energetic" rather than mechanically. If you have time to read the second book of Architectural model language. And then there's a little reminder, good architects and designers do not read the works of a few masters, they are honed in a long cycle of "theory-practice-summary-theory-practice-again", and we think this time will be at least 7-8 years.

In the language of architectural patterns, the C. Alexander model is divided into three parts:

The first is the context in which the problem is, i.e., the environment and condition of the problem facing the current pattern, that is, what happens to the pattern;

The second is motivation (motivation), that is, the purpose of this model or the intended target;

Finally, the solution (Solution), the core of the solution to achieve the desired goal or solve such problems.

Through the above description, we can draw the conclusion that the pattern is essentially from the repeated occurrence of the event found and abstracted from the law, is to solve the problem of the formation of a high degree of experience summarized. As long as it is repeatedly recurring things, there may be some kind of pattern. And when a field matures, there is a natural pattern in this field. With the help of Alexander's model theory, GOF has put forward 23 design patterns in the field of software. Similarly, the "workflow pattern" naturally occurs in the process area.

The book's name, "The timeless path of the process," applies Alexander's classic quote: "The process is only on the path of eternity, it will be vibrant." "Then what is the eternal path of the process?" In this book, we will explain three timeless ways to readers in turn. This chapter first describes the first timeless way, the eternal way of process change-workflow mode.

Workflow mode as the soul of the process, is time independent (timeless), it is related to people, culture, not with the development of time and new technology, so can be called eternal. Moral Classics and Yue: "Dawson One, life two, two birth three, Sansheng all things." "Apply this sentence to the workflow mode is very accurate, workflow mode can give birth to one, two, ..., and finally the creation of the universe, evolved countless different patterns of the process of composition." It can be said that without workflow mode there is no flow, workflow mode is the eternal way of flow. Next, we start around the workflow pattern to see the timeless path of process change-how the workflow model lives in the afterlife.