We've created the mechanism by which this wiki can outgrow its original vision. We've spawned an outpost in a new codebase that interoperates with the established federation only to the degree we find convenient. Now, with a few months of exploration behind us we ask, what are we doing and when will we know we are done?
# Code
Each of us is well grounded in the code. We know where things happen, why they happen and where we are likely to be disappointed by what actually happens. We know the code. We know how it got to be the way it is. And we know where progress with computers has lifted limitations.
In a call today we discussed some coding that has proven elusive. Improvements on one dimension didn't seem immediately helpful in another. And, how many dimensions are there really? We weren't sure.
Then we turned to a recent bug where finishing one edit and beginning another led to a collision that left event handlers hooked up wrong. Should we go fix that bug or design in the outpost abstractions that make such collisions easily avoidable?
# Method
We were turning a coding question into a process question. How can we proceed orderly applying our collective experience recognizing our own inability to see all of a complex system at once.
Our habit has been to pick interesting experiments, code solutions, and share experience. We would be "scratching our own itches" as the open-source explanation goes. Was this enough to lead to a system in which we could be confident? Probably not.
Could we instead chart a roadmap of problems to be solved and ordered such that solutions compounded? Probably not.
What organizing principle could we use then use to organize our efforts?
# Whole
We have to escape considering ourselves as machines that can be programmed. We can follow steps but that will not engaging all of our faculties.
I suggested we should probably fix the bug but only undertake this such that we are taught lessons to be applied in the outpost.
Our creative inspiration will come faster and be rewarded sooner in the outpost. When we have a bug in one place we should fix it in both. Expediently once and creatively once again.
Our intuitive understanding of code will only be close at hand in the outpost. Code there will manifest today's intuition and our success, our completeness, will be revealed by a dramatic sense of satisfaction as we seek That Which Emerges.