[WDCDev]

> Everybody considers themselves a designer, but it is baseless optimism that is supported by little data or precedent. Good designers are unique. Design ability is a 'talent'. Being able to conceive a complex system that maintains "conceptual integrity" is not an ability that everyone has, nor is it show (yet) that is even teachable!

It's also talent that is hard to recognize and can be valued very differently from one organization to the next. I've been in the room with developers and management looking cross-eyed at me as I walk them through a top down business/problem decomposition and system design questioning the value of the entire exercise. Not surprising, these are organizations which have extremely brittle systems full of overlapping and "hard to reason about" abstractions.

[eternalban]

I've had that experience on multiple occasions. Initially, when younger, I did attribute it to myopism. Today, I recognize that credibility also needs to be earned. All architects are unhappy except those who manage to find the right client. The client-architect relationship is fundamental. A successful architectural undertaking is minimally a two variable equation. Client (aka stakeholders) are hugely important.

(this is related imo to your post: https://brooker.co.za/blog/2020/10/19/big-changes.html - )

On a related tangent, I've been re-reading "The Open Hand - Essays on Le Corbusier". Specifically, the "Le Corbusier at Pessac - Professional and Client Responsibilities" essay by Brian Brace Taylor.

https://www.worldcat.org/title/open-hand-essays-on-le-corbus...

Pessac: https://www.archdaily.com/940878/le-corbusiers-cite-fruges-l...

That project basically failed its intended purpose. The client, M. Frugès, was apparently an enlightened capitalist, willing to invest in the vision of the young architect, even when incurring financial losses, because of Pessac. Corbu also learned, on the job, how to, and how not to, build his modernist vision. The whole thing was a fiasco on many levels. But it was a necessary project for progress in the field.

Which is the point: architectural innovation is costly and even great architects leave a trail of failed early projects. Yes, Corbu went on to master his field, and he did deliver (opinions of course vary) on the program of modern, afforadable, mass housing for the urban working class:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit%C3%A9_d%27habitation

But then:

"You know, it is life that is right and the architect who is wrong." - Le Corbusier (!)

https://libquotes.com/le-corbusier/quote/lbz6x3v

It's a problematic vocation (bricks or bytes). Love it or leave it.