The Albertian Divide

The 500 year societal split has ended

At what point does the specification become the implementation?

Leon Battista Alberti drew a line between the two in 1450, and the line has held for five centuries, starting with architecture. Alberti separated the design from the making — what he called lineament versus matter: the architect authored a drawing, and the mason built a copy of it in stone.

This gap carried the risk, however we built much of modern society around this split. Software creation evolved in its image.

But agents have collapsed the two personas into one. As the description of a system increases in precision, the description compiles into the system itself.

The specification is now the implementation. Those who can describe a thing become those who can build it.

Thanks to Niko for the inspiration.