Cuius regio, eius realitas by ~mmagueta
Just a few weeks ago I could afford indulging the leisure required to appreciate an excerpt of history that aged like wine. The Holy Roman Empire (which was Holy, Roman and an Empire) hosted the known Diet of Augsburg in 1530. Despite worthy of a well recounted historical description, which would provide little to the apparent novelty of collaborating with the felonious side of life. One of my main observances in the latest days, goes exactly at that: such Diets are all around us. We are besieged in such a way, that the only possibility to state the matter, as the walls crumble brick by brick, is to be ferocious and state the matter frankly; a citadel cannot be just an illusion of our safety.
The citadels were the last line of defense in a medieval city. Most of the time, it was meant to be an idle souvenir of hope, that served to demoralize the invader and uplift the hopes of the defenders. Much more important than the raw architectural functionality, a citadel would have a symbolic importance that displayed who was willing to go further with determination.
Today our citadels are too frail. The fortifications which helped King Béla’s Hungary against Nogai Khan are far into a distant past, and too long forgotten to be of any use. Of course, I do not mean their physical decrepit counterparts, but their immaterial idea. Just the other day I saw a particular discussion which, despite containing a mundane one-sided offense instigation, I believe they shed light into a high mental stress, nourished by a glance to a powerful proposition: “I want reason back! Here is an argument I am making sense out of: <argument goes here, use your imagination>”. Funny to quote so, anyone willing to discuss, and surely clever people (I do assume), would be more than willing to engage (as some of them did). But of course, some Mongols were at work.
That souvenir of hope was shattered as I read. Without any judgment of the syllogism proposed, which would require a whole dedicated time to comprehend and derive a conclusion or refinement, I invite you to contemplate:
I. Modularity means “The capacity to have arbitrary pairing of implementations and interfaces”; II. A module means the pairing of particular interface with a particular implementation; III. A SOA means to support only implementations that support being tied to a single interface; Therefore, C. Supporting SOA is not supporting modularity. – Eduardo Bellani at LinkedIn
Now, why would an argument of that shape invoke the barbarity of something of the kind:
A) You have grossly oversimplified modularity. SOA is an architecture that can have modularity.
B) How? And no it cannot, at least not according to my definition.
A) I would suggest you would need to start with refining your definition then. I can see by the comments that you are someone who won’t bend an ear, so that’s all I have to say. – An exchange
This is in full display, a Diet of Augsburg. There seems to be a hint of a possible agreement, but a disheartening rupture at the end, with unjustified assertions that almost seems to invoke some fear. If the definition is poor or not, I don’t know, but what is the suggested replacement?
One can freely interject and say: “oh my good friend, that is just a saloon discussion, people are not interested into solving the mystery!”. Which unfortunately might be very true. The consternation here, is not because of the disagreement, but the personalism at the spotlight. It is almost as if objecting to a premise, refining the syllogism and approaching the problem in an intriguing way to discover something sound was never the point. I will spare you of the rest for brevity, but in short, all the other comments are either fervorous about maintaining a ground on something that cannot crumble, or blending with olives and grated parmesan what is the physical citadel and its abstract counterpart. This happens all the time, it should be noted.
On why something cannot crumble, it is easy to understand. I wouldn’t want to spend my life on something false, what a waste! On the citadel, is much trickier; at one side it does collaborate with the very plan of bolstering one’s morale, but the immediate rejection of words that mean little if not agreed and the despise to clear them out, is severe. Alasdair McIntyre on his book After Virtue, writes extensively on exactly this point: how can we try to agree, if we share no common understanding of reality? Perhaps most of our arguments are logical and conclusions do follow from the premises, but if there is a revolutionary grammar, what can we do? Martin Luther, Cardinal Cajetan and John Eck did agree at some point, despite Luther being a nominalist. Could we go back to that, please?
Perhaps it is lunacy to long for an age where scholastic texts presented problems with the intent to medidate upon them; with memorable figures like Erasmus of Rotterdam bursting into laughter because of a comedic Latin text mocking the severity of the formality of the scholastics (Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum). But that very lack of formality and precision are reflections of the disregard with grammar.
Such sad state of affairs is paving a very depressing path for computation. Practicality cannot take over an art that is, precisely a bridge between grammar and logic. Not arguing in terms of what things are, and not projecting definitions from what is essential to the existence of something in question, or what of it is independent of all else, are forms of such disregard; lack of abstractive thinking or maybe even dishonesty – consequence and planning. Nevertheless, little I can do, but noble task it is the little; despair is not an option, and if being truthful is to be under attack by ignorance, then so be it. I am sure the Mongols did not speak Hungarian. But I can’t help to ask: to whom should I assign this shame?