This guy clearly doesn't understand the iterator pattern!
J/K'ing. But he consciously chose to give the talk a "click bait" title, and the goat thing was a bit of hyperbole. Totally reasonable things to do, but know that you have to live with the backlash from that.
All of that said, I agree with this core point that "we need to take a fresh look at Christopher Alexander". I plan to go out and get a copy of the pattern language book and read it sometime soon, to get a better perspective on "real" Alexanderian patterns. This was a handy reminder to do that.
It's worth mentioning that "A Pattern Language" is just that, it's a language of about 250 patterns that can be applied to urban design, building layout, and construction. If you want to know more about design patterns and how and why Alexander came up with the patterns described in "A Pattern Language" in the first place (which is helpful if you want to create a pattern language of your own to address the needs of a different field), you might be interested in "A Timeless Way of Building".
(I would recommend reading or skimming through "A Pattern Language" first, to get a good idea of what Alexander's idea of a well-formed pattern is. It's also a really interesting book in its own right, especially if you have any interest in architecture.)
J/K'ing. But he consciously chose to give the talk a "click bait" title, and the goat thing was a bit of hyperbole. Totally reasonable things to do, but know that you have to live with the backlash from that.
All of that said, I agree with this core point that "we need to take a fresh look at Christopher Alexander". I plan to go out and get a copy of the pattern language book and read it sometime soon, to get a better perspective on "real" Alexanderian patterns. This was a handy reminder to do that.