Drawing Parallels to Science

Brownfield Development approaches the understanding of computers in a manner that is not all that new in terms of science but is extremely new in terms of computers. Brownfield Development looks at the smallest computational building block and develops a detailed understanding of the system by fitting each piece of the computational puzzle together. This is not all that different from Chemistry where atoms (which are made up of even smaller building blocks) are combined into elements and elements under very specific combinations and parameters make up molecules as well as compounds. In the same way, Brownfield Development, is based upon the smallest computational unit which is called a triple. Triples are made of 3 elementary components a Subject, Predicate and Object. When triples are combined they will eventually result in the representation of complex computer system.

Everything in nature can ultimately be broken down into atoms in the same way all computational systems can be broken down into the triple building blocks that make them up. What is interesting is that molecular diagrams look very similar in structure to a diagrammed ontology. Please see the 2 images below, one is a graphical representation of an ontology, the other is a graphical representation of a molecule...what is interesting to note is the similarity in structure between the two diagram forms. Granted these are mankind’s attempt at visualizing things that are so complex that we're still learning new things about them today but that is the whole point of Brownfield, embracing complexity such that we as human being can better utilize the systems that we work with and that operate almost all facets our society today.


Figure 1 - Ontology Visualisation


Figure 2 - Molecule Visualisation

Computing as a whole could benefit from looking at the other sciences and gleaning from the years of work that have already been done. The natural world is in my opinion the ultimate example of engineering at it's best. The following are links to wikipedia pages for a couple of other interesting areas of science that might have some interesting parallels with Brownfield development as well.

• DNA
  
• Computational Chemistry
• Ecosystem
• Subatomic Particles