Architects
I’m kinda busy, so I haven’t blogged about yesterday evening yet. But one thing that springs to mind is the following from Ingo.
He said, we used to feel really good if we could tell people we were developers. Then it wasn’t that cool anymore and we called ourself senior developers. Now more and more people are senior developers so we found something new. Now we want to be architects, to look cool. I don’t know about you, but when they take away my Visual Studio and reply it with Word, so I can create documents about architecture all day long, I go crazy. That’s the day I quit my job and may become a farmer or something. I definitely want to develop applications. I don’t have to be the one that develops the entire application, or finishes it, but I don’t want to loose my VS.NET. I love to (think I am) creating an architecture, design components, tell other people how everything works (how to HST, for the people that were present yesterday) and then start developing and learning other (maybe less skilled) developers how all this cool stuff can be done. Just don’t take away my VS.NET! Then it’s okay if people call me architect.
And of course my boss wants me to tell him, that I want to be an architect, because else I won’t have any goals left, nothing to work at and then I can’t impress him anymore, won’t get raises, etc, etc. 😉
Anyway, Ingo Rammer is also working on a new book, it’s about architecture. But my kind of architecture, the kind of how to implement this architecture that’s already on paper, sort of speak. Taking decisions on how and what. I’ve read a sample chapter and it’s looking real good! Should be released Q4 this year. He’s already got one customer! 😉
Dennis is an independent consultant and software architect who loves building distributed systems and the challenges they bring. What he learns he tries to share via numerous articles, blogposts, presentations and workshops.
Hmm I’ve heard other respected developers pronounce the exact same thing.
http://www.martinfowler.com/ieeeSoftware/whoNeedsArchitect.pdf
http://www.martinfowler.com/bliki/BuildingArchitect.html
Architects definitely fulfill an important role in the process. To me a junior developer supports the senior developer. This spread a range of activities variating from getting coffee to realizing (sub)systems of the solution). The senior developer has a certain responsibility in the development process and advises the architect technology wise. The architect connects conceptual, logical views to physical views resulting in complete systems and infrastructure with support from stakeholders, analysts etc.
I think the whole “Architect is a trend” debate is a time waster. Looking forward to read Ingo’s book 😀
I don’t care what title I have, as long as I get to do projects that challenge me. If they call me (junior) developer, I might get MS Access at me. When they think I’m an architect, I get to do the cool stuff on (larger) projects.
I’m also (trying to) take on Service Orientated Architecture. The services were always there, but now they’re better defined, I guess. And more info is available on how to HST, or Hook Shit Together, as we heard monday evening! 🙂
I see a lot of problems with SOA that I can’t find the solutions for, yet. I hope the example apps for Shadowfax and Fabriq show solutions. Haven’t had the time to look at the Shadowfax example app yet, and Fabriq was just released.
Anyway, I like doing things the SOA way. It’s still on certain points a lot different to what we were used to. It’s just like when .NET was released, a whole new way of programming (kind of) came to light. In some sort of way, I feel the same about SOA. And I like it. Also the discussions it brings forward with other developers why they can’t plugin their Crystal Reports directly onto the database, or can’t do this or that, like they were used to! 😉
Although they (these discussions) can be very frustrating from time to time, I’ve noticed I get a lot of satisfaction from proving my point! 😉
If you don’t own Integration Patterns (http://www.eaipatterns.com), yet I’d advise you to buy a copy.
Because of? I’m kinda lost why you come up with this all of a sudden! 🙂
I know it’s supposed to be a great book, and I already got EAP, but there’s so much to do and so little time. I’m doing DDD currently, although I’m into Star Wars Galaxies at the moment. 14 day trial and I want to use every minute of it. Too bad I also have to work, take care of my kids, give my wife some attention and have to sleep even! 😉
Because of "I’m also (trying to) take on Service Orientated Architecture". Integration Patterns give you a head start.
I’m waiting for HL2 and its mods 😀