Monday, June 02, 2008

Pre-conference seminar for Aspiring Architects

Turning software development into a true profession has been a wishlist item for years. If only we had a governing body, unity, standards, education and career paths to follow, networking, community, leverage. Some of my hotheaded friends even threw the word "union" around for a while. Now it's gotten even more specific: turning architecture into a true profession. In all the same ways. Which seems kinda odd considering the original software development profession thing hasn't been solved either. (At least, I don't think it has... hope I didn't miss a memo.)

Having said that, the presentation by the founder of the (non-profit) International Software Architects Association (IASA) was really interesting and useful. He's a good speaker, and he addressed so many of the things I struggle with... sure seems like I'm not the only one trying to get my brain around this.

"Architects are technology strategists." (I heard a lot of keyboarding in the room after he said that one, but I'm still contemplating what it means.) "The best developers don't always make the best architects," and vice versa. I do not think that actually means a bad developer can be a good architect, but it does seem to contradict the notion that an architect is someone who's been a developer for > n years for some employer-specific value n. Following that idea, "can architects be made?" From scratch? Is the architecture skill set a refinement of the developer set, or is it something else entirely? IASA guy says the latter. Interesting.

I'm glad for the focus on professionalism, rather than yet another list of articles and/or tools and/or frameworks... not necessarily because I think the pink-unicorn-dream of turning software into classical engineering or medicine or what have you is likely to happen, but because even short of a full-blown professional organization, talking about the professional issues seems to be the right path toward applying architectural ideas to real problems.

Who are you and what right do you have to call yourself an "architect"?
What do you need to know to be any good?
Once you learn that, what's next?
How do you get the support you need from your employer?
How do you get them to listen to you?
How do you prove your value to your employer?

P.S.: I had some doubts about whether Microsoft really was going to be totally on top of every single little detail at this conference. (TechEd veterans may point & laugh at the n00b now.) I needn't've worried. They've got it all covered. E.g., I guess OCCC doesn't necessarily have wireless coverage throughout the center, which seemed like a major oversight, but, duh, Microsoft brought in their own.

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