More ballet and software engineering

Sometimes a quick search using some popular search engines reveals people with similar ideas, in this case about ballet and software engineering: on the IBM Developer Works site is an article dated from 2005 by someone called "gbooch"*:

Software architecture, software engineering, and Renaissance Jazz

which mentions the link between software architecture and dance:

"It seems to me that there's a curious relationship between dance and software architecture: in both disciplines, there are only a limited number of patterns available, each genre assembles those patterns in specific ways that define a particular genre, and furthermore, most knowledge is passed on through tribal memory, from one dancer or architect to another. In dance, by the way, some attempts have been made to define a graphical notation for describing dance movements, just as we have the UML for visualizing, specifying, constructing, and documenting software-intensive systems."

Exactly...!

*I guess if the mysterious "gbooch" thinks this then I'm in good company.

Then there's another post on Techtalk: If Software Were Like Ballet which lists a number of points, the first of which is:

• Little kids are encouraged to get used to the equipment and basic practices.  Even if they don't actually do these things they are told about build and release cycles, software qa, and algorithms.

Now I don't agree with some things said in that posting, but certainly the above at least in terms of encouraged to use the correct equipment, techniques and basic practices is apt.