What we talk about when we talk about software (Software, metaphor and Conway's Law)
A SkillsCast for this session is not available.
I will relate this creative aspect of metaphor to cognitive metaphors that have been investigated by George Lakoff et al. Lakoff's research posits that the only way we can think and communicate about abstract concepts is to relate them, by metaphor, to our physical environment. And you don't get much more abstract than software! We usually do not even notice the metaphors we are using when describing software. However, careless use of metaphor can hinder the process of designing software, communicating about software design and organising ourselves to collaborate on software development. If we cannot avoid metaphor we must use it to our advantage and avoid its pitfalls.
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE:
Thank you to our sponsors and partners
Platinum
What we talk about when we talk about software (Software, metaphor and Conway's Law)
Nat Pryce
Nat Pryce is a co-author of Growing Object-Oriented Software Guided by Tests. An early adopter of XP, he has written or contributed to several open source libraries and tools that support TDD and was one of the founding organizers of the London XP Day conference.