One way the architecture metaphor breaks down is that very tiny details can have incredibly large knock-on effects in software. This is different from normal a

One way the architecture metaphor breaks down is that very tiny details can have incredibly large knock-on effects in software. This is different from normal architecture and building engineering where it's certainly true that there are many details that need to be carefully considered, but those things are well understood and managed from project to project. Software on the other hand could be doing anything, in a world of pure logic traversing scales analogous to the smallest quark ranging to the entire universe. Building physical things just doesn't deal with those scales, you only have to worry about material properties and structures within a range of few orders of magnitude.