Christopher Alexander was an architect. According to Wikipedia, he built over 100 buildings. That alone is an accomplishment. But he was also a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. While there, he researched the theory of design, among other things.

His seminal book “A Pattern Language” introduced us to an approach to the design of buildings and cities. This approach not only provides us solutions and frameworks for known issues, but also names for them. Even though his ideas are controversial in his field of architecture, they have been taken up and successfully transferred by other disciplines.

This also applies to software development. His ideas led, e.g., to the emergence of the legendary gang of four’s book “Design Patterns” or the Wiley series “Patterns of Software Architecture”, absolutely worth reading by the way. This work has allowed us software developers to leverage and share existing conceptual knowledge.

Even Wikipedia, according to wiki inventor Ward Cunningham, would not exist without his ideas. And the Agile community would miss a few ideas.

That's why Christopher Alexander was an important person for me, even though I never met him. Thank you for everything. RIP.