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by chriseppstein 5091 days ago
Did you actually read the link before commenting? Honest question.
3 comments

It's a clever list of aphorisms. None of the qualities you desire are actually defining features of the SA, though.

Who on your team is not a student? who is not a mentor? who should gloat when they are right? who does not understand the most precious parts of the system?

I think your list is less about A Software Architect and more about people who take pride in their work.

I think you're starting to understand my points then.
If you were asking an "honest question", wouldn't you be expecting to get some further information from the answer? I don't see anything.

It just sounds the usual "Did you even read XXX?" rhetorical question. I'm not even against rhetorical questions. It's simply annoying when "honest question" becomes nothing but a emphasizer in the fashion of the common misuse of "literally" or a "justifier" ("I think you're idiot" is out of line but in our world of touchy-feely-ism, "I honestly think you're an idiot" is OK)

Edit: Instead of just "taking a shot" by saying, "did you read the article", I'd suggest saying why you don't think the comment reflects the article. Otherwise, your post says little more than a downvote.

Absolutely. And you lost me from the first point:

"A software architect lives to serve the engineering team -- not the other way around."

This implies the SA is not a member of the engineering team. Or if they are, they're "special" in a way the rest of the team isn't. And that I whole-heartedly disagree with. Most of the other things I expect every member of the team to do, anyway.

So if your point was to say - "Everyone in the dev team needs to be the SA", then yes, you're right. But that's not how it reads.

I agree. Reading through this list, I wonder what we would lose by replacing "software architect" with "lead developer" or even just "really good developer". It seems like the list would retain its meaning, without the potentially muddying effects of a word (architect) that comes loaded with all kinds of preconceptions.