A6ToddMytkowicz

A6ToddMytkowicz

To-Do

please create an answer via the form for this assignment addressing the following issues:

• which was the most interesting idea/concept you learned from the article? what is the relationship of this idea/concept to your own work and own thinking?
• which is the most prominent meta-design environment you can think off? Why?
• analyze one computational environment in detail from a meta-design perspective? (if you can't think of a better one: analyze Microsoft-Word)
• argue in which sense the American constitution may be considered as a success example for meta-design

Most interesting idea/concept

The idea of meta-design is something that I employ in my own work and often fight against my collaborators to uphold. I had not given thought to the idea that it exists as a means to study. In my own work, I try to build a framework up around those things that I analyze, rather than building a general purpose tool that allows people to do a fixed number of "useful" things. To give an example, I had an internship at IBM where they wanted me to build a GUI for analyzing the data from a microprocessor. I was vehemently against this idea. If a tool is based upon a GUI, the flexibility of the design is broken. Instead I wrote a meta-language in scheme that allowed users to develop their own analyses which could then be hooked up to a graphing utility if needed. This was a much more powerful design choice than a fixed feature GUI.

However, I slightly disagree with the article's definition of meta-design. It seems that it is biased to a design environment in which everyone can participate in the process. I don't think this is required nor is it something that ultimately we want for many systems. There is a cost for collaboration / management of ideas and at some point this cost overwhelms the benefit of having a large group of people work together on a system. Sometimes users should be just users!

Most Prominent Example

Given my caveat above, I would argue that UNIX / LINUX is a prominent example of meta-design. It provides a framework for evolving (C programming language) as well as tools for users to build their own systems (UNIX Pipes, for example). It also has collaborative aspects (multi-user system). It is geared toward advanced computer users but that does not take away its notion of being a meta design.

Detailed Analysis

I use the R statistical package for 90% of my data analysis work. This is an environment with (i) a horrible programming language, (ii) libraries to do common statistical operations, and (iii) tools to build up graphs and figures. R is also collaborative. It is built upon an extensive package system that has its roots in a public repository where users can contribute. By being open source, R allows for constant evolution. By balancing useful packages that do what most users need to get done quickly and a programming language that allows users to do more when needed, this is a meta design.

This environment is indeed useful for those that want to do statistical analysis, and as such the article might argue that this is not a meta design environment because it is not open to the general public. That said, I would argue that this environment employs meta-design as it allows people like me, who do not have a background in statistics, to carry out interesting and involved analyses.

American constitution as Meta-Design

The American constitution is a meta-design. Amendments allow for constant evolution and it certainly is a collaborative effort and it is obviously "used" by everyone (following its mandates/laws, for instance). However, those that can actually affect it are not the same caliber of people that use it. For instance, I cannot propose an amendment, I have to be a government official. Also I cannot declare a law unconstitutional, I need to be a judge / lawyer for this right. Moreover, it would not be beneficial for the evolution of the constitution if everyone were afforded these rights. The cost of collaboration outweighs the benefit.