Fine-grain case studies of scientific inquiry, lessons from linguistics on metaphoric thinking, the epistemology of Charles Sanders Peirce, recent work on architectural image-schemata, along with the computer world's own theorist, Peter Naur, all suggest that software developers (frequently dulled and desiccated from overdosing on 'Cartesian' methodologies) could benefit from imbibing a little 'mysticism' not the wave-your-hands woo-woo kind but the more ineffable hunch and gut side of human cognition. Scholarly publications in their final polished forms rarely admit that stories, jokes, eroticism, and dreams were the fertile seeds that germinated into 'serious' results. This essay looks to these 'closet' sources, non-reductionist, non-self conscious, metaphorical, aformal modes of thought as the salvation of a profession gone awry. It is notably proto-scientific image-schemata that retain our attention as a pragmatic tool for improving the fecundity of Agile methodology, at its roots, so to speak. The necessary context is provided by Peter Naur's fundamental insights about software development as 'theory building' coupled with an elaboration of the Agile concept of storytelling.

During its formative decades the software community looked twice to the theories of Christopher Alexander for inspiration, both times failing to completely master the architect's most useful insights. Now a third opportunity presents itself with Alexander's recent publication, The Nature of Order. Serious apprenticeship, however, imposes a prerequisite of sober self-reflection and evaluation. What, really, is the nature of the developer's tasks? Under what philosophical umbrella has the software community matured until now? Do other philosophical traditions offer alternative and perhaps more pertinent epistemologies? What voices, besides Alexander's, might contribute to the community's evolution? We address these questions along with theory building, ethnography, weak links, design heuristics, agility, and complex systems, all of which combine with Alexander's new theories to suggest different ways of doing what we do, better.

Anthropology is the study of civilization, particularly its societies, customs, structure, and evolution. Our premise is that there are cultureal "chasms" to be crossed to ensure the success of the technological beachhead established by innovators and early adopters of the OO paradigm. Our panelists will address the following questions:•What anthropological cultural factors have to be "matured" (and how?) to foster the success of the OO paradigm?•What mechanisms are required to facilitate communications between cultures of differing maturity?•What cultural chasms must be crossed to develop a successful organization/culture within the framework supported by the object-oriented paradigm (or more perrversely, is there anything "special" about the OO paradigm)?This panel will interest pracitioners as a forum to share and debate experiences related to our current-day software culture metamorphosis.