[mplanchard]

I used to think this, and I’m sure there are plenty of bad architects who add net-negative value, but having worked on some extremely difficult systems as an IC, I would have given anything to have future me able to hand down a scalable architecture from on high, vetted by past experience and domain familiarity.

Not having that, I developed the knowledge myself through trial and error, but we would have saved a lot of time, money, and stress doing it right the first time.

In general, I think this kind of “architect bad” take underestimates the cost and the stress of being responsible for a system that ultimately isn’t a great fit for the domain, and needing to balance hacking another fix onto it vs migrating to what now know is the right thing.

[suzzer99]

Yeah I should caveat I'm talking about development where the ultimate outcome is the web or web-apps (iOS, Android, smart TVs). Everything is still changing so fast in that field, an architect who doesn't code gets out of touch very quickly IME. It's possible an architect makes more sense in other more mature fields.