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I'm looking for a metaphor.

A friend of mine taught me to use metaphors from nature, everyday life, math, and use them to design my projects. They can help in creating a better design or better understanding or the problem, and they are cool.

Now I'm working on a project with hardware and micro-controllers in C. For convenience, I have decided to use multiple micro-controllers as co-processor units for real-time (the slaves) and a master.

This has saved me a lot of headache: I can code the main logic in the master without paying too much attention to super optimizing everything; I don't care if I need some blocking-call; I don't worry about serial communication with the computer. I just send messages to the slaves and they are super fast super in real time.

I like my design and it seems to work well.

So here are the important concepts that I'm trying capture in the metaphor:

  • hierarchy of processing
  • Not using one big brain but rather several small, distributed brain units
  • using distributed power or resources

I'm looking for a good metaphor for this concept of having one unit synchronize the work of all the others. Preferably, the metaphor would come from nature, biology, or zoology.

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Sounds like a "supervisor" architecture. Instead of "master-slave", think of it as "worker-supervisor"; the "boss" gives his subordinates tasks, and checks in from time to time to make sure the tasks are on schedule and moving in the right direction. The synchronization aspect gives the supervisor a little more to do than in the classic distributed model, but I think that basic pattern still holds. – KeithS Oct 23 '12 at 17:44
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Octopii and other cephalopods have distributed nervous systems. How cool would it be to use an 'octopus pattern' in your next project? – GrandmasterB Oct 23 '12 at 18:15
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I have voted to re-open after editing your question. The original presentation made it very difficult to understand what was being asked. – GlenH7 Oct 23 '12 at 18:24
@GlenH7 thank you very much! – nkint Oct 23 '12 at 19:01
@GrandmasterB a distribuited nervous system is exactly what i was looking for. what a pity of closed question because your should be a good answer! – nkint Oct 23 '12 at 19:02

closed as not a real question by Jim G., Robert Harvey, Thomas Owens♦ Oct 23 '12 at 18:14

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the FAQ.

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