Short Take: Fractal Design

For years (I think, starting somewhere in 2000), I've been fighting my delusions of grandeur when explaining the concept of fractal design to people - I thought that obviously somebody must've thought of something this simple way before I did, and, hence, it is a common concept that I heard of somewhere and subliminally decided that I coined the term.

Apparently, not quite. Despite the fact that Google search for fractal design and fractal architecture returns more than enough matches, my patience was exhausted well before I could find anything similar to what I had in mind.

So let me put the stake in the ground, then, and introduce a definition:

Fractal Design: design pattern characterized by approximately same level of complexity at any level of abstraction.

It is a counterpoint to God Object (a.k.a. Blob), Interface Bloat, Spaghetti Code, abused Ravioli Code , Big Ball Of Mud and possibly other Antipatterns.

Starts making sense in context of Complexity Management, which, in turn, is not very well defined in the software engineering domain (this nice essay is just about the only article connecting the two), though, apparently, is widely accepted and practiced in business.

Short Take: Modulating Dampers

A damper, in HVAC terminology, is an air valve used to regulate the flow of air through the duct.

There are two general kinds of dampers (definitions are probably not in line with HVAC terminology, but hopefully understandable enough):

• Simple, also known as bang-bang, dampers - these can only be in fully open or fully closed position;
• Modulating dampers are able to stay in any position between fully open and fully closed.

First kind is, of course, cheaper, but has serious drawbacks - first, the noise they make is quite noticeable (one can get used to it, though), second, they provide only limited control and are not suitable to advanced applications.

Modulating dampers, on the other hand, are silent by design and provide adequate control, but require more sophisticated control systems in order to utilize the capabilities.