Orthogonal problems

I’ve just been through one of those random processions of discovery and loose understanding.

I was looking at the various meanings of orthogonal, which I increasingly see in the context of discussion of good design. I’d grasped that its meaning in design is an extension of its mathematical meaning of (loosely) perpendicular.

Then, on the evergrowing Wikipedia, I read this:

Orthogonality is a system design property which enables the making of complex designs feasible and compact. The aim of an orthogonal design is to achieve that operations within one of its components do not create nor propagate side-effects to other components. For example a car has orthogonal components and controls, e.g. accelerating the vehicle does not influence anything else but the components involved in the acceleration. It would be a non-orthogonal design were for example the acceleration to influence the radio tuning, or the display of time.

At which point I’d had enough of good design, and became entranced by the idea of a car where pressing the accelerator winds down the windows, pumps up the radio and tilts the seats back. Even better, it makes the clock go faster.

Then, more sensibly, why not use radio tuning as a speed control? Stray over the speed limit and you detune your radio. That’ll keep people at non-lethal speeds.

You could, I think, extend the principle to mark out certain radio stations for certain speeds. So, nudge up over 50mph, and your radio tunes from Radio 3 to Radio 4. 60-70mph, and you get Radio 1. Over 70, and it goes to Classic FM.

Edward de Bono would be proud.