The Castle and the Waves

Once there was a designer. A designer is someone whose job is to decide how things should be: how they look, how they work, how they feel to use.

This designer wanted to build a castle. Not a castle made of stone — a castle on the internet, where artists could keep their music and their pictures and their stories, and where anyone could come and wander through.

There was one problem. The designer did not know how to lay the bricks. The bricks of an internet castle are called code, and code is a very fussy language that only computers speak properly.

So he found helpers

Each helper has a name and a job. Sally draws the plans with him. Amelia runs the building site and keeps an eye on everything. And teams of small helpers lay the bricks — all at the same time, like a wave rolling up a beach. When a wave has finished, the castle is one storey taller.

But here is the part worth knowing. A saw is a wonderful tool. It is still not the saw that makes a beautiful cabinet — it is the carpenter. Helpers are the same. What matters is not having them. What matters is knowing how to work with them. Like this:

1. The designer decides. The helpers suggest, explain and build. They never choose what the castle is meant to be.
2. Everything goes in the big notebook. Every decision gets a number. That way nobody forgets, and nobody can say “but we agreed…” when they didn't.
3. Check, even the helpers. When a helper says “that wall is leaning!”, another one goes and looks at the wall before believing it. Helpers can be wrong too.
4. A wall only counts when you can touch it. Not “nearly done”. Not “done on my workbench”. The designer goes to the real castle and looks with his own eyes.
5. The notebook never forgets. Helpers fall asleep all the time — poof, gone! But it is all written down, so a new helper picks the work up exactly where the last one left it.

The round of the building site

The work always turns the same way, like a dance:

Three little sentences

One day the designer looked at the plans and said three small sentences. Only three. Something like: no — the tools should work straight on the artwork.

And everything moved. Sally redrew the plans. Amelia stopped the building work that had just become useless. And the three sentences went into the big notebook with ten new numbers beside them. Nobody argued about who was right. In this castle, what the designer thinks is beautiful becomes the rule.

The helpers lay the stones.
The person dreams the castle.