Some perspective on Software Architects
“You provide the food, I’ll provide the perspective” it’s my favourite quote from the (excellent, if you want my opinion) Ratatouille. In software, we have a awful lot of “foods” (new technologies, languages, frameworks, architectures, websites), but we have a few people able to put them in the right perspective. That’s what I like of Ted Neward, his ability to give us the perspective.
This post on Software Architects (thanks to my former collegue Alberto for pointing me to it) is a masterpiece. Something like “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Software Architects, But Were Afraid to Ask”…
[...] What relevance do architects have today? [...] an architect is the captain of the ship, making the decisions that cross multiple areas of concern (navigation, engineering, and so on), taking final responsibility for the overall health of the ship and its crew (project and its members), able to step into any station to perform those duties as the need arises (write code for any part of the project should they lose a member). He has to be familiar with the problem domain, the technology involved, and keep an eye out on new technologies that might make the project easier or answer new customers’ feature requests.
[..]
Granted, all of these answers notwithstanding, there’s a large number of “architects” out there whose principal goal is to simply remain employed. To do that, they cite “best practices” established by “industry experts” as a cover for making decisions of their own, because nobody ever gets fired for choosing what industry “best practices” dictate. That’s partly why I hate that term: it’s a cop-out. It’s basically relying on articles on popular websites and magazines to do your thinking for you. [...]
Read the complete post of Ted Neward
