Notes on planning, records, and search
The layer beneath the plan
Second Stratum is a small publication for people whose work has to hold up after they have left the room. We write about the structure underneath ordinary work: how a plan breaks into steps, how a set of records becomes a ledger someone else can read, and how a search finds its way through a space it cannot see all at once.
Index of entries
Four entries make up the current index. If you prefer to see a mechanism before reading about it, start with the lab.
| 1Folio | 2Entry | 3Kind |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | Routes: a maze lab A canvas grid that carves a maze with a depth-first walk and solves it with a breadth-first search. The route and the cells the search examined are both drawn. | Lab |
| 02 | The open ledger method How to keep a record that a stranger could pick up and continue. Numbered entries, plain labels, and one rule for every correction. | Guide |
| 03 | Who this publication is for What we cover, what we leave out on purpose, and the voice we write in. | Note |
| 04 | Write to the desk Questions about an entry, a correction to a page, or a method you would like examined in the open. | Contact |
Three working rules
01
Show the mechanism.
A method is only useful if a reader can watch it work. Where a process can be drawn, we draw it. Where it can be run, we give you the controls to run it yourself.
02
Name every change.
A revised page says what changed and why. We do not replace text quietly, because a reader who relied on the earlier version deserves to know that it moved.
03
Stop where the evidence stops.
We teach methods and describe trade-offs. Where a decision carries financial, legal, or medical weight, we set out the considerations and leave the decision with the person who has to live with it.
Start at the lab
The maze lab is the quickest way into how this publication thinks. Generate a grid, solve it, and then read the notes beside the canvas to see why the route came out the way it did.