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You make very good points.
I have found that if someone only works with services, for instance, you have a higher quality product then if it was designed, implemented by someone who does not do services all the time and has to constantly refer to the internet or other people for instruction.
I speak in general terms here. We all have to learn some time; which is why you would apprentice, so to speak, under the "Services" guru/team.
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No.
Real architects don't only design, they also code.
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.-John Q. Adams You must accept one of two basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not alone in the universe. And either way, the implications are staggering.-Wernher von Braun Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.-Albert Einstein
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TheGreatAndPowerfulOz wrote: Real architects
Agree.
Unfortunately, many people (not necessarily here at CP) think that if your title has Architect in it then you are real.
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Yes, and those people also believe that if you have a funny face, then you must be a clown.
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.-John Q. Adams You must accept one of two basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not alone in the universe. And either way, the implications are staggering.-Wernher von Braun Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.-Albert Einstein
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Some of my inputs include:
Software architects should
-Design
-for ease of understanding
-for maintainability
-for quality
-for performance
-write code
-for the same reasons above
-expect the highest quality code and design from his development team
-know about testing, at least have a plan and have a good test team
-keeping a common secure code base
-be in communication with the customer, management, and all team members
-look over the shoulders of his development team
-have numerous code and design reviews with the developers
-understand the data his system consumes, produces, and has internally
This is not a full list.
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Every coder, programmer, developer, architect, code-monkey, etc should all strive for the same
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.-John Q. Adams You must accept one of two basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not alone in the universe. And either way, the implications are staggering.-Wernher von Braun Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.-Albert Einstein
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Well I have the title but consider myself a senior dev, I do the design of the app from the database structure through to the UI. I then code it to UAT and hand it over to the support team.
IMHO any seasoned LOB developer must be able to do this. An architect on the other hand probably does the design and then gets a code monkey to do the development while he moves on to the next project.
I also think an architect should be able to design across multiple, disparate systems and platforms, something I am incapable of doing.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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Mycroft Holmes wrote: I do the design of the app from the database structure through to the UI.
So few devs know to do it this way -- which is a hybrid Domain Modeling start and works for most projects very well / far better process than 95% of the devs use.
Thanks for mentioning it.
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newton.saber wrote: So few devs know to do it this way
Really? I've done development this way for a long time, just from experience, I assumed most people did it that way.
Actually, working on DB structure is the part of my job where I'm actually doing a bit of architecture, that's when everything has to be thought through. It's just mindless tedium after that. Show me your (sane) DB structure and I have a pretty good idea of how the entire system works, it's the first thing I want to see when working on a new system.
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I believe the role of the Architect is to ensure the technical design of the product is 'correct'.
In order to do this they need to be technical (so they know the techniques that could be used, and can select the best ones for the circumstances)
they also need to understand the whole project - as such they need to be able to talk to the product owner(s) at a non-technical level in order to make decisions on the technologies to be used.
So it is the architect that should be making the decision on different technical aspects of the project - and ensuring they are adhered to and are consistent.
Like a building architect doesn't just look at how pretty the house is, but ensures that the tensile strength of the materials is sufficient for the location - that the glass in the windows is the right glass for the situation, the Software Architect will make sure that the MVVM framework used is the right one for the job - and is used correctly; that the third party controls selected are used consistently etc.
they are the one that stops the developers from using some new technique they just read about because it looks cool, and forces them to use tried and tested techniques.
They cramp our style, but ensure a technically consistent and stable product. - That's the value.
The skills are many; They need to be a competent developer, and constantly learning about new things (and prepared to listen to input from developers with suggestions about using different tools for the job). They need to be able to listen to product owners and translate their requirements into sensible solutions (so you don't end up with a 7 tier solution to a desktop app that displays the time in China, or a monolithic application that runs the entire international business.)
Can the value be measured?
That's tough - without an Architect solutions can be a mix of techniques, inconsistent and difficult to maintain - unless all the developers just agree and work the same way) but measuring what may have been compared to what is is always hard!
PooperPig - Coming Soon
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I really hate how terms from construction bleed into software development. No! you aren't an "Architect". You aren't a "Design engineer".
I've been named an architect and I have to deal with it - In my views the "Architect" is responsible for the technical direction that the project is taking and must maintain a vision of the entire system and plan technical items accordingly so that you don't end up with a mess of unmaintainable spaghetti. He is also responsible for dealing with management and explaining design decisions to the bean counters and time planners. But most importantly, I think the architect must follow his or others design decisions in code, be extremely competent technically and up-to-date with all SW dev. trends(and bullshit) and have the domain knowledge needed for making competent technical decisions.
If the architect doesn't code, doesn't keep current on SW dev. practices(or even lacks knowledge on well establised practices), and only sits inside a UML tool then he most likely is producing negative value for the team.
Unfortunately, life isn't this simple or idealistic and there's loads of "architects" out there that should be taken out back and shot. But there's also loads of developers out there that do what a real architect would do for a project that simply aren't recognized. Oh and it doesn't matter what you think an architect should do, it's what management thinks that matters.
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Great points. Thanks for replying.
I especially agree with you on:
slack7219 wrote: If the architect doesn't code, doesn't keep current on SW dev. practices(or even lacks knowledge on well establised practices), and only sits inside a UML tool then he most likely is producing negative value for the team.
And definitely:
slack7219 wrote: Oh and it doesn't matter what you think an architect should do, it's what management thinks that matters.
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The function of architects is to have stupid, unworkable ideas, which the carpenters will redesign on site to make them work.
It's pretty much the same in the programming world.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Mark_Wallace wrote: function of architects is to have stupid, unworkable ideas,
I've worked under these people too and they definitely are not architects, no matter how many times it says it in their title.
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Hi,
I have that title and role in my company, and it makes me cringe a little when I read some replies implying that architect work is "just producing diagrams and let developers do the real work".
Best way for me to answer the questions asked is to explain the role of the architects in my company I guess.
So, here are some of the things I'm expected to do (along with my fellow architects):
- knowing everything about all the technologies we use and the ones we could use: languages, frameworks, protocols, front end, back-end, cloud platforms, tools, etc. (note that it is 'expected' from us, personally I feel far from having all the knowledge others think I have or should have... And my learning is done on my free time, obviously...)
- having an equal knowledge about the business, for all the clients
- knowing all the technicalities of every project we operate
- dealing with the clients and partners for everything technical. Involves presentations, meetings, fake smiles, and often dying a little inside and refrain from facepalming
- when starting a new project, designing for the big picture, taking into account performances, reliability, security and using knowledge of all the projects to decide what we can or not reuse
- breaking down the design into chunks for developers. Each developer is given requirements to meet for her chunk, then must design her chunk herself, that we will then review, with maybe several iterations.
- managing development processes (source control, build, etc)
- managing developers' recruitment and growth. Architects are in charge of technical interviews, developers' initial training, performance assessment, task repartition, etc.
- ensuring code quality
- building teams you know you can trust enough to delegate as much as you can
- being responsible. As an architect, you make the overall technical decisions, and you tacitely approve the decisions of every people to whom you delegated, meaning you're accountable for everything that can go bad
- taking the heat when things break, even if not design-related. Identifying the causes. Converting the heat you've taken into proper advice for developers so that the errors will never be done again. That's a key point of the role: taking the stress, but avoid putting it back on the developers (there is already the project manager for that...)
- being able to quickly fix anything on any project
- coding some critical parts, some tools or some abstractions to facilitate developers' work
- suffering from impostor syndrom and stress, because that's a lot to take on, and you're never ready to deal with it, and damn your too young for that.
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I can see that you are under a lot of pressure and your role as Architect seems to have a firm description where you work. It sounds as if you are filling the role of the true Arhitect that many of us understand / expect the role to be.
Small Epiphany
As I was reading your long list of responsibilities I was hit by an epiphany of sorts.
Many of us have suffered under "Architects" who have honestly been more in the role of Manager -- who played the role of King -- who sat back, shot out what s/he thought were Genius Designs and then became utterly unaproachable when the Genius Design could not be implemented in real code.
That's the problem many here have with Architect role. However, your role, to me, looks like the real role of Architect. Thanks so much for chiming in with your thoughts.
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Its an abstraction level. When I wear that hat, I am designing at the metaphor level...
Trying to validate the actual (real) design concerns. Does this HAVE to support 1000 computers connecting, picking off work to do (as in queues), or is it really 1,000 humans selecting the next thing they are skilled enough to handle with specific resources at their ready.
In some cases, is 256ms delay between requests Obscene or acceptable.
Knowing how technologies tie together, work together, and blending it with the Business Requirements. Add in testability, provabilitiy and fault tolerance.
Finally, what Public APIs will we support for others to continue to connect into us, etc. etc. etc.
When I am done, like others have said, I should be able to present management with the salient points of the process, and confirm we have it right. And at the same time, I should be able to work with the developers to make sure they build what is expected, and it works as described...
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Great input.
Kirk 10389821 wrote: When I am done, like others have said, I should be able to present management with the salient points of the process, and confirm we have it right. And at the same time, I should be able to work with the developers to make sure they build what is expected, and it works as described...
Agree 100%. A very good summary of what the Architect should really be doing.
Sounds like your company is doing things right.
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I used to work with a guy who thought he was an architect, but he was really just a programmer who didn't do anything. He would actually bring up in meetings the fact that some people (architects) spent their time designing and didn't bother with the code; that's what he wanted to be but not what he was hired to be.
So he sat around and read books and kept other programmers from working by talking to them all day about interesting ideas that he'd never actually implement. When management lit a fire under him he'd pound out some code, but it would all just be prototyping with function stubs. He actually felt that implementing functionality was beneath him, as was maintaining/fixing his code. So basically someone had to come along behind him and finish his work, for which he would take credit but no responsibility.
He was one of the most knowledgeable programmers I've ever worked with, and also one of the most useless. Despite his knowledge his code was poorly thought out and sloppy. He saddled the company with half-baked, buggy, incomplete in-house systems that were architected out the wazoo with five levels of frameworks but couldn't actually do what they were supposed to do.
True architects are great, but spare me the wannabes.
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Great input. I've experienced this same thing.
StatementTerminator wrote: He was one of the most knowledgeable programmers I've ever worked with, and also one of the most useless.
Great quote, because these people do tend to show up on many development projects. Often found at large companies where they and their code can hide out.
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I think the "Architect" portion of the title is often misapplied.
I worked for several years as a systems engineer (computer based systems for HVAC automation) in the construction industry. "Architect" in that context is how I see "Architect", abstractly, in "software architect".
It means looking at more than code, object design, UI and workflow, etc. It means looking at hardware, power requirements, air conditioning, real estate/building rental, contracts, business processes, financing, project management, cost projections and estimating, labor management, software estimating (the real voodoo economics), and all the other aspects associated with the total life of the project.
Consider this example:
You are the software architect tasked with taking existing code (mostly VB6, some C++, some Java) in a product suite that is currently in production with existing customers who depend on it. There is existing cash flow to consider. There are existing enhancements and bug fixes in the pipeline to consider that, if not done to meet deadlines, affect contracts and cash flow, as well as the company's reputation. The marketing research team has made a very persuasive case that the company must, within 2 years, have its product suite providing some or all of its services on mobile devices (as appropriate for the functionality). Further, VB6 is a 32 bit language, and it is obsolete, no longer supported by Microsoft. Its compatibility with current Windows OSs is "iffy" at best, and questionable going forward in a market where you would need to support Windows, Android, iOS, and perhaps Windows Phone. Part of your challenge is to migrate completely off VB6 without negatively affecting existing contracts, maintaining the existing product, and meeting marketing's need for an updated and enhanced version that meets the market's needs on desktop, laptop, and mobile devices, and does so securely, with good performance.
To do all that requires a lot more than software engineering alone. An architect for a building has to broadly cover similar areas, and often draws on others' expertise to do so, but making his or her own decision because they understand how each disciplinary area works and interacts. A software architect should do no less.
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Great reading and great points and you are the first I've noticed to mention $$$.
Your points make the importance of all the outside elements pushing in on a project and the necessity of making sound trade-offs on the decisions made.
At the end it isn't about the technology at all, it is about a business solution. However, as soon as I say that, people are going to think I'm saying you could just write everything in JavaScript, but I don't mean that either. I mean the most important thing is the business solution related to the bottom line. That's why the true architect has to know so much because:
1. it has to be economically feasible for the company
2. it has to keep the company secure,
3. it has to be easily maintainable so the company doesn't lose $$$ doing maintenance,
etc.
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I agree, and thanks.
Of course, the ones who would think you are saying you could write everything in JavaScript are missing the $$$ point. When it comes to the technology considerations, you have to pick technology, including the languages involved, that provide the performance, reliability, and scalability in the end-user environment that keep the user using your product (cash flow to your company) and not another product (loss of cash flow to your company).
Loss of cash flow means folks don't get paid.
IMHO, software architects, at least this one, should keep his or her hands in coding to some degree in order to know what the technology holds. If nothing else, coding and testing new language features and testing capabilities to gauge usefulness and benefit. At least enough time to know whether or not something is worth having others spend time with it.
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A software architect is a good programmer and thinks ahead how the parts interoperate, whether or not the system is extensible and has good judgement to predict performance.
A "software architect" which is not a good programmer is a disaster. One cannot have guts feeling about interoperability, extensability and performance without the skill to actually build the pieces. The grounding would be missing. While a manager can compensate not being a top-notch expert by using people skills, listening skills and listing to the best engineers, an architect cannot. Without the skills one makes a fool out of oneself when trying to tell professionals how to do their work. Well, the syntax details of a language might be the one thing which does not matter.
A good software developer can do or is in the process of learning to do software architecture. But mediocre software developers can still code an algorithm without understanding the bigger picture.
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