You could start by listing the ad hoc methods. Others might add to the
list.
The list might inspire alternative ideas. --scott
Yes, Scott. We should do that.
Collect what we had invented or some interesting new ideas, and then try to reorganize them into an order, in such a way, we can reshape our old space to a new form. We need a brainstorming.
Before go to details, I what to talk something about Christopher Alexander, design pattern, and their relationship to wiki, and then back to observability.
I was only a young programmer when I personally got to know design pattern and Christopher Alexander about ten years ago. At that time, I think design pattern was only a solution to a frequent problem. Several years later, I had read the books '''The Oregon Experiment''' and some part of '''The Timeless Way of Building''', I began to realize pattern is only a methodology for making an organic ( or live, harmonic, etc) environment by a group of people in a self-organized way.
It looks to be occasional that Ward Cunningham invented WikiWikiWeb for collecting design patterns in OO programming. But I think the real relationship between wiki and design pattern are deep.
Because we can trace some essential ideas of modern Wiki practice back to the ideas of Christopher Alexander.
Consensus in wiki vs. participation of a building process by everyone in a community
Accumulate small anarchy contributions into an ordered form vs. The slowly growth of town in an organic way
etc.
Why talk about these, because modern Wiki world is like a big city. If we want to reshape the city, we should take a look at what architect says.
Let's back to observability. Why observability is important? Because we are recognizing our environment from our observation, and all consequent events are based on the observation.
While what can be observed is a choice of the designer.
Regards, Mingli