About this podcast
A podcast about how people have applied ideas from outside software to software.
Episodes
The newest 20 of 55 episodes
- E52: Emotions as concepts · 33 min · Episode 52An elaboration on episode 49's description of the brain as a prediction engine, focusing on a theory of what emotions are, how they're learned, and how emotional experiences are…
- E51: Constructed memories (a nugget) · 6 min · Episode 51Memories appear to be constructed by plugging together stored templates. Do concepts operate the same way? Sources • Suzi Travis, "False Memories are Exactly What You Need"…
- E50: the preferred level of abstraction (a nugget) · 16 min · Episode 50We see a creature near us, and we describe it as a dog. Why that and not "mammal" or "animal"? And if that dog's a Springer Spaniel, and we know it's a Springer Spaniel, why do…
- E49: Metaphors and the predictive brain · 19 min · Episode 49It's fairly pointless to analyze metaphors in isolation. They're used in a cumulative way as part of real or imagined conversations. That meshes with a newish way of…
- E48: Multiple metaphors · 27 min · Episode 48When we name a class name `Invoice`, are we communicating or thinking metaphorically? I used to think we were; now I think we aren't. This episode explains one reason: ordinary…
- E47: Oops! The Winston W. Royce Story · 27 min · Episode 47In 1970, Winston W. Royce published a paper “Managing the Development of Large Software Systems.” Later authors cited it as the justification for what had come to be called the…
- E46: How do metaphors work? · 32 min · Episode 46Conceptual metaphor is a theory in cognitive science that claims understanding and problem-solving often (but not always) happen via systems of metaphor. I present the case for…
- E45: The offloaded brain, part 5: I propose a software design style · 38 min · Episode 45In this episode, I ask the question: what would a software design style inspired by ecological and embodied cognition be like? I sketch some tentative ideas. I plan to explore…
- E44: The offloaded brain, part 4: an interview with David Chapman · 44 min · Episode 44In the '80s, David Chapman and Phil Agre were doing work within AI that was very compatible with the ecological and embodied cognition approach I've been describing. They…
- E43: The offloaded brain, part 3: dynamical systems · 26 min · Episode 43Scientists studying ecological and embodied cognition try to use algorithms as little as they can. Instead, they favor dynamical systems, typically represented as a set of…
- E42: The offloaded brain, part 2: applications · 34 min · Episode 42Suppose you believed that the ecological/embodied cognitive scientists of last episode had a better grasp on cognition than does our habitual position that the brain is a…
- E41: The offloaded brain, part 1: behavior · 32 min · Episode 41Embodied or Ecological Cognition is an offshoot of cognitive science that rejects or minimizes one of its axioms: that the computer is a good analogy for the brain. That is, that…
- EXCERPT: Concepts without categories · 16 minThis excerpt from episode 40 contains material independent of that episode's topic (collaborative circles) that might be of interest to people who don't care about collaborative…
- EXCERPT: Christopher Alexander’s forces · 14 minSoftware design patterns were derived from the work of architect Christopher Alexander, specifically his book A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction. This excerpt…
- E40: Roles in collaborative circles, part 2: creative roles · 45 min · Episode 40The last in the series on collaborative circles. The creative roles in a collaborative circle, discussed with reference to both Christopher Alexander's forces and ideas from…
- E39: Roles in collaborative circles, part 1 · 32 min · Episode 39Farrell describes a number of distinct roles important to the development of a collaborative circle. This episode is devoted to the roles important in the early stages, when the…
- E38: The trajectory of a collaborative circle · 28 min · Episode 38Collaborative circles don't have a smooth trajectory toward creative breakthrough. I describe the more common trajectory. I also do a little speculation on how a circle's "shared…
- E37: Resilience engineering with Lorin Hochstein · 45 min · Episode 37An interview with Lorin Hochstein, resilience engineer and author. Our discussion was about how to handle a complex system that falls down hard and – especially – how to then…
- E36: BONUS: One circle-style history of Context-Driven Testing · 48 min · Episode 36I was a core member of what Farrell would call a collaborative circle: the four people who codified Context-Driven Testing. That makes me think I can supplement Farrell's account…
- BONUS: a circle-centric reading of software development through the 1990s, plus screech owls · 30 min · Episode 35Michael P. Farrell's Collaborative Circles: Friendship Dynamics and Creative Work (2001) describes how groups of people follow a trajectory from vague dislike of the status quo…
