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Anyone billing themselves as an pure architect is going to raise a lot of alarm bells that they want to be an architecture astronaut. https://blog.codinghorror.

by jdwyah 3y ago

Anyone billing themselves as an pure architect is going to raise a lot of alarm bells that they want to be an architecture astronaut. https://blog.codinghorror.com/it-came-from-planet-architecture/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/it-came-from-planet-architectu... A world of difference between "I want to build things and I have studied how to build things" and "I have studied how to build things and would like to tell other people how to do it".

humanfromearth9 3y ago
Well such comments are quite negative about the software architecture activity, but the might indicate some general misconceptions about what the job should be and how it is perceived. The perception might indeed be due to the existence of people labeled as architects who are indeed removed too much from actual developers' problems. I believe that the software architect's job actually consists in making everyone else's work on the project possible (so each project stakeholder must be satisfied): - give to the PM everything needed to estimate, plan and organize the work and budget - make sure that testers will indeed be able to test the system - make sure that the analysts understand what is being built and delivered, as well as understand how to document the requirements so that everyone else will be able to understand what is expected - make sure that the sponsors and senior management understand what they'll have and allow them to be convinced that the design is sound with regard to ASRs - make sure that the developers understand how to develop, which components, the interfaces.... - make sure that admin and ops people know how to install and operate and update and uninstall the system - make sure that the DBAs are satisfied with the documentation provided to them - ... Given this definition of the job, it is clear that an architect has to understand everyone's work, their inputs and outputs, and can't work alone in his ivory tower. It looks like actually most actors in the market just don't know what responsibilities and practices software architecture actually encompasses. Architecture evaluation may be seen as the way to prove that the architecture meets the quality and feature requirements. That's nothing short of helping doers show that what they do is indeed what they are paid to do. I guess that when architects become talkers, it's a sign that they are not close enough to the technology or implementation any more. And indeed, talkers don't help do stuff, they talk.

by jdwyah 3y ago

humanfromearth9 3y ago

Well such comments are quite negative about the software architecture activity, but the might indicate some general misconceptions about what the job should be and how it is perceived. The perception might indeed be due to the existence of people labeled as architects who are indeed removed too much from actual developers' problems. I believe that the software architect's job actually consists in making everyone else's work on the project possible (so each project stakeholder must be satisfied): - give to the PM everything needed to estimate, plan and organize the work and budget - make sure that testers will indeed be able to test the system - make sure that the analysts understand what is being built and delivered, as well as understand how to document the requirements so that everyone else will be able to understand what is expected - make sure that the sponsors and senior management understand what they'll have and allow them to be convinced that the design is sound with regard to ASRs - make sure that the developers understand how to develop, which components, the interfaces.... - make sure that admin and ops people know how to install and operate and update and uninstall the system - make sure that the DBAs are satisfied with the documentation provided to them - ... Given this definition of the job, it is clear that an architect has to understand everyone's work, their inputs and outputs, and can't work alone in his ivory tower. It looks like actually most actors in the market just don't know what responsibilities and practices software architecture actually encompasses. Architecture evaluation may be seen as the way to prove that the architecture meets the quality and feature requirements. That's nothing short of helping doers show that what they do is indeed what they are paid to do. I guess that when architects become talkers, it's a sign that they are not close enough to the technology or implementation any more. And indeed, talkers don't help do stuff, they talk.