the ‘bee log

From the book Ancient Mathematics by S. Cuomo:

Another stunning example of the accuracy that could be achieved by Greek builders is linked to the name of Eupalinus of Megara. The so-called Eupalinus tunnel, built c. 550-530 BC, is part of a water-supply system for the city of Samos, and runs for some 1036 m under a mountain. Excavations have revealed that the tunnel was made by two teams of workers, who started to dig at the two opposite sides of the mountain and managed to meet in the middle.

I like to attach this idea to our solution architecture: the system is the tunnel and we’re building it from two ends: a Web Services “feature farm” and Composite UI client apps (both Smart and Web). Of course the two big segments have to meet in the middle, but each side of the mountain may have different soil/rock composition and pose it’s own set of challenges/techniques/methods. The method we employ is our own kind of TBM. Man, I want one of those.

One could consider your typical feature a kind of “tunnel”. At some level it can go from a user gesture like filling out a form, clicking a button, or setting up a workflow schedule (where they enter the tunnel), through a series of web services (distribution, infrastructure), to a domain model (your destination, let’s say grandma’s house), and possibly back again.