[HN Gopher] The cathedral that failed
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       The cathedral that failed
        
       Author : acsillag
       Score  : 66 points
       Date   : 2023-01-26 08:18 UTC (14 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (riowang.blogspot.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (riowang.blogspot.com)
        
       | cousin_it wrote:
       | Such sound architecture. Even when unfinished and without a roof,
       | it's still beautiful and people want to be around it somehow,
       | with plastic chairs and bonfires.
        
       | mmsimanga wrote:
       | Came straight to the comments expecting breakdown of why a closed
       | source application failed.
        
         | kweingar wrote:
         | Both cathedral and bazaar are models of developing open source
         | software.
        
         | herodoturtle wrote:
         | ... which in turn sent me down a rabbit hole of researching
         | what esr has been up to since his famous essay.
        
           | martincmartin wrote:
           | So what's he been up to?
        
             | giraffe_lady wrote:
             | 9/11 conspiracy theories, climate denialism, white
             | supremacy mostly.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | [deleted]
        
       | hinkley wrote:
       | I visited London right after I read Neal Stephenson's Baroque
       | Cycle, and we ended up in a cathedral off Fleet Street (I was
       | quite disappointed that my mental image from the books was a 20m
       | wide open sewer and in fact the buildings today might only be 5m
       | apart close to the Thames) which was designed by Christopher Wren
       | after the London Fire.
       | 
       | I don't recall the name, I'm sure someone here who knows London
       | can work it out from my description, but you could go up into the
       | dome and I remarked to myself that the fall to the marble floor
       | from the highest opening in the dome could easily kill a man.
       | 
       | I've probably repeated this story here half a dozen times now,
       | but in the background information posted at the church it said
       | that he had so many people wanting to commission him for building
       | their church yesterday that he built them without bell towers
       | with an agreement that once everyone was back in business, he'd
       | come back around and build the towers on. Seeing how complex
       | those domes were, I'm not quite clear why adding a tower later
       | was a substantial savings in time and effort but that's the
       | story.
        
         | pjc50 wrote:
         | A Cathedral? Off Fleet Street? Built by Wren? That's only St
         | Paul's, one of the most famous buildings in the city ..
         | 
         | If you'd gone up the dome, it has a "whispering gallery" where
         | if you whisper along the wall it echoes round and can be heard
         | on the other side.
         | 
         | Due to the great fire of 1666, a _lot_ of London churches were
         | built by Wren. He has a distinctive style.
        
         | jlarcombe wrote:
         | Heh, "a" cathedral, St. Paul's! He didn't do many with a dome,
         | St. Stephen's Walbrook the only one I can think of apart from
         | St. Paul's. Most of his City churches are less grand, but no
         | less interesting.
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christopher_Wren_churc...
        
       | Eleison23 wrote:
       | [dead]
        
       | japanman425 wrote:
       | [flagged]
        
         | dang wrote:
         | " _Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents._ "
         | 
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        
       | telesilla wrote:
       | >It is not uncommon for Gothic cathedrals to be left unfinished
       | 
       | Let's not forget the spectacular Sagrada Familia. It's worth so
       | much, unfinished that I assume Paris will learn from this with
       | the Notre Dame.
        
         | peoplefromibiza wrote:
         | Sagrada Familia is not gothic though.
         | 
         | It was born as a neo-gothic church but when Gaudi took over as
         | the construction supervisor, he changed its style to liberty,
         | giving birth to what is now known as Catalan modernism.
        
           | jasonjamerson wrote:
           | Yes, Art Nouveau, or "Liberty Style" in Italian, maybe also
           | in Spanish?
        
         | capableweb wrote:
         | I don't think Sagrada Familia has been "left unfinished". It is
         | still unfinished, yes, but construction continues, it hasn't
         | stopped as far as I could tell last time I was in Barcelona.
        
         | dendrite9 wrote:
         | Are many buildings ever really finished? I don't think people
         | go to the Sagrada Familia because it is under construction. In
         | fact I think more visitors would prefer more access with less
         | equipment around. 150 years isn't really that long for a
         | cathedral, this good article starts with the fact that the
         | Bristol Cathedral took nearly 700 years to finish!
         | 
         | https://theprepared.org/features-feed/2019/4/28/building-a-c...
        
         | shrimp_emoji wrote:
         | https://youtu.be/IAiB_T2kqbc
         | 
         | "What kind of fire would burn us theeere?"
        
       | pieterr wrote:
       | I was expecting a discussion of [1].
       | 
       | [1] http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/
        
         | forgotpwd16 wrote:
         | Me too but have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Non-tech
         | articles such as these are nice to have.
        
       | sanedigital wrote:
       | Great article, but I think its odd to call James I of Aragon's
       | conquest of Mallorca a "Catalan conquest".
       | 
       | Poor Aragon, always getting its history rewritten by Catalan
       | separatists and those that sympathize with them.
        
         | FlotaDeAragon wrote:
         | Those catalans want to steal the victory of the world renowned
         | Fleet of Aragon
         | 
         | By far the best fishermen of Spain
        
         | capableweb wrote:
         | Isn't the "Crusade of the Infants of Aragon" commonly known as
         | the "Catalan Crusade" though? The Aragonese Crusade would refer
         | to the events related to the War of the Sicilian Vespers.
         | 
         | I'm no history experts though, so would be happy to be
         | corrected, this is just my understanding of things.
        
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       (page generated 2023-01-26 23:01 UTC)