Christopher Alexander talks about self-conscious and unselfconscious architecture. What caused the shift from unselfconsciousness to self consciousness?

In software, was there ever such a shift? Some parts of the industry seem to be unselfconscious, but in a bad way, producing code in an unsustainable way: as projects go on, development gets bogged down; bugs abound. Other parts respond to this by getting too self conscious: too much of the wrong kind of discipline; too much formality and rationality; plans, diagrams, models, documentation, bureaucracy.

I don’t know why, but this reminds me of how, for instance, music companies resist new technologies: the radio, the cassette, MP3s, burnable CDs, P2P music sharing; also: movie companies.

The paradox here is that these are creative companies. Okay, perhaps not music companies, but movie companies. Especially Disney, which has been creative in, it seems, nearly every aspect of its activity: everything had to be invented; paints, sound systems, animation itself, the process of communicating the vision to, and coordinating the animators.

I don’t know much about the computer game industry, but I guess it’s there the Disney of our time can be found. ––– Got to go, but I wonder whether it’s just the fact that lots of money is at stake.