Seeing what has survived and what hasn’t has long been one of my favorite vivid forms of amusement. There were a plethora of patterns, infrastructures, paradigm shifts, and algorithms. Wise people debated them fervently, considered long-term views, and attempted to strike a balance between all the known components, but in the end, they came to naught. Why? What is the past attempting to teach us?
Pick a noble assignment
For a software architect, this is highly challenging. We receive assignments and issues from the client, so we really don’t have a choice, do we? It’s not really that easy. First of all, we frequently make the error of thinking that we have little power over what the customer desires. But it’s typically possible to just step outside of your comfort zone when it comes to technology.If we make the wrong decision, we could run into dragons. As time passes and we put a lot of effort into the assignment, it becomes clear that our efforts were in vain because we did not complete the necessary steps, and the work is ultimately in vain.All other solutions are unlikely to succeed when applied to a well-chosen challenge.
Keep It Easy, Dude
We tell ourselves, “Keep It Simple, Stupid,” a lot. As much as we say, we don’t. We don’t do it because it isn’t required. Since we are so intelligent, we can easily handle and rationalize the additional complexity because it increases the flexibility of architecture, because we find such solutions to be more elegant, and because we think we can predict the future. Time passes; we’re going to be abandoning the project for at least a year.And we nearly always question why what we did was done when we returned. We most likely would have chosen quite differently if we could go back and do it all over again. Time was playing a joke on us, making us look foolish in our own eyes. Try to grasp this as soon as you can, get over your lethargy, and learn what simplicity really means—that is, the capacity to endure throughout time.
Be happy with the bargains.
Architects have a tendency to search for “the only true path”—a system or philosophy that can provide a great deal of desirable predictability and ultimately lead them to the answers they believe are in close proximity. The issue is that it’s doubtful that the rules you are directing now will be the same in a few years, much less decades. When you look back, the outcomes are never up to your present standards. Recognize your prior successes and resist the need to go back and “correct” them. Was the answer in line with the assignment?
Did it fulfill the requirements? You’ll be happier if you use these questions as evaluation criteria.