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Now we are blurring into the line of architect, but that is too much of a hands off role. If an architect is hands off he or she is either a project manager or

Now we are blurring into the line of architect, but that is too much of a hands off role. If an architect is hands off he or she is either a project manager or a business analyst. Consider the definition of architecture - Architecture in the computing world consists of a system’s elements; the relationships between those elements; the attributes of the elements; and the attributes of the relationships. [1] A "full-stack" developer is an architect. While the list covers the usual suspects, I'd also mention tiers, how they facilitate scaling out and up, and how a layered design facilitates them. [1] http://www.bredemeyer.com/whatis.htm http://www.bredemeyer.com/whatis.htm

mcrider 13y ago
I think he's referring to an information architect, which could be its own profession, or fall into the role of a PM or UX person. Architect is somewhat of a generic term, but an information architect is an important role in many organizations.
guiomie 13y ago
I diasgree. An architect usually doesn't develop. I suggest you google architect (solutions, systems, application, network ...etc).
- Spearchucker 13y ago
  The first link that search returns is solution architecture from Wikipedia [1]. In "Overview of solutions architect", second paragraph: A practitioner of Solution Architecture, Systems engineering and Software engineering processes, the Solutions Architect is... I've been writing code for over 20 years, and have been an architect (I dislike that title as much as I do full-stack dev) for 14 of those. If you tell me you're an architect that doesn't code, you lose credibility (with me). Network architecture might involve scripting or code but is predominantly about configuration [2]. It's simply an infrastructure stream as opposed to a dev stream. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solutions_Architect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solutions_Architect [2] http://www.wittenburg.co.uk/Entry.aspx?id=91035731-e5b6-491d-8d0a-1a8b6da293e7 http://www.wittenburg.co.uk/Entry.aspx?id=91035731-e5b6-491d...
  - Silhouette 13y ago
    If you tell me you're an architect that doesn't code, you lose credibility (with me). It's an overloaded term these days, and things like "information architecture" are very different to "software architecture", so I wouldn't put it quite as strongly as you did there. That said, I agree completely with the point I think you were really making. To me, a software architect is just a senior developer who has particular responsibility for big picture and integration issues, possibly along with other development roles they play. It's the breadth counterpart to a technical lead, who is a senior developer with particular responsibility for specific parts of the system and a deep understanding of those parts. IME having a software architect becomes useful somewhere around the time that anyone on your team can no longer talk to anyone else just by swivelling their chair and saying hi. They don't have to have the word "architect" in their job title, but somebody had better be making sure that Andrew, Bill, Claire and David are all writing code that's going to fit together in a maintainable way and that the tools are there to build and test the combined code.

mcrider 13y ago

I think he's referring to an information architect, which could be its own profession, or fall into the role of a PM or UX person. Architect is somewhat of a generic term, but an information architect is an important role in many organizations.

guiomie 13y ago

I diasgree. An architect usually doesn't develop. I suggest you google architect (solutions, systems, application, network ...etc).

Spearchucker 13y ago
The first link that search returns is solution architecture from Wikipedia [1]. In "Overview of solutions architect", second paragraph: A practitioner of Solution Architecture, Systems engineering and Software engineering processes, the Solutions Architect is... I've been writing code for over 20 years, and have been an architect (I dislike that title as much as I do full-stack dev) for 14 of those. If you tell me you're an architect that doesn't code, you lose credibility (with me). Network architecture might involve scripting or code but is predominantly about configuration [2]. It's simply an infrastructure stream as opposed to a dev stream. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solutions_Architect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solutions_Architect [2] http://www.wittenburg.co.uk/Entry.aspx?id=91035731-e5b6-491d-8d0a-1a8b6da293e7 http://www.wittenburg.co.uk/Entry.aspx?id=91035731-e5b6-491d...
- Silhouette 13y ago
  If you tell me you're an architect that doesn't code, you lose credibility (with me). It's an overloaded term these days, and things like "information architecture" are very different to "software architecture", so I wouldn't put it quite as strongly as you did there. That said, I agree completely with the point I think you were really making. To me, a software architect is just a senior developer who has particular responsibility for big picture and integration issues, possibly along with other development roles they play. It's the breadth counterpart to a technical lead, who is a senior developer with particular responsibility for specific parts of the system and a deep understanding of those parts. IME having a software architect becomes useful somewhere around the time that anyone on your team can no longer talk to anyone else just by swivelling their chair and saying hi. They don't have to have the word "architect" in their job title, but somebody had better be making sure that Andrew, Bill, Claire and David are all writing code that's going to fit together in a maintainable way and that the tools are there to build and test the combined code.