Verdant Sundial#
Fig. 7 The verdant sundial casts shadows of past and future intention observed in the present. (Image source: VS1).#
“The present is the ever moving shadow that divides yesterday from tomorrow. In that lies hope.”
- Frank Lloyd Wright
The software garden is intertwined in a story of time which is exhibited like a shadow on a moss-covered sundial. Time is observed indirectly through a kind of software archeology in past-tense material artifacts (files) and present-tense operation (procedures). These artifacts act as shadows of our prior creative intentions where procedures become the living present materialized promise of those intentions. “This brings an uncanny sense of living in a state where the future is a dimension of our present reality.” VS2 The future is elusive but present in software artifacts, similar to rings of a tree that depict the promise of continued stability or hope of change.
These software tree rings are vessels of temporal data which offer a unique insight into growth patterns. We can study these patterns like dendronchronology: “Peel away the hard, rough bark and there is a living document, history recorded in rings of wood cells.” VS3 This peeling helps us understand the chronological nature of software and how it evolves. It also shares patterns of temporal pulsing - not all times of the software garden are the same.
These software pulses give visibility into distinct growing or receding patterns. Some code exhibits annual behavior, requiring continual replanting efforts each season. Others are perennials, undergoing seasonal change perpetuated by periods of vibrancy and dormancy. Seasons of software promote differing patterns among these. Some systems may prepare for winter (for instance, during resource scarcity, or periods of high performance stress) through adaptable conservation only to fervently bloom during their spring.
Seasonal chronology in software benefits also from an awareness of kairos, the opportune timing of our actions amidst time. As we gain experience in software gardens we begin to anticipate seasonal change which helps us project preparatory change. Each software gardening moment amidst this cascade of season includes a series of options of varying kairological fitness. Assessing these moments of their fit within patterns helps us gain wisdom as we contemplate time in software gardens; like annual flowers, how do we anticipate and accept the limited lifecycle of some software? Like mighty trees, how do we build software to last 100 years or more?
Elfward. Garden sundial in an epping garden. 2015. URL: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sundial_2916_HDR.jpg (visited on 2024-05-18).
Timothy Morton. Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2013. ISBN 9780816689231.
Carolyn Gramling. ‘tree story’ explores what tree rings can tell us about the past. Science News, June 2020. Accessed: 2024-05-18. URL: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/tree-story-book-explores-what-tree-rings-can-tell-us-about-past.