Comment by dofm
14 hours ago
Any coder with experience or ability imagines a world where software architects are regulated the way real architects are, and acts accordingly.
I mean, this was drilled into me at uni — that software was not likely to escape regulation forever and that you can't know with certainty how all the code you're writing will be used when you're not observing the use.
For example, under what constraint regime should the calculator app bundled with an OS be written? It's just a little bundled toy app. Until someone under pressure uses it to calculate a medicine dose, expecting it to be a calculator like it says.
Perhaps this gives away my age more than anything else.
In regards to (software) architects being regulated, the problem was always going to be that someone can jump in and build a "skyscraper" in their room/garage — and they have!
I honestly have failed to see the value of anyone wearing an official "Software Architect" hat in my 20 years of being in or leading high performing software development teams: yes, we built and maintained complex systems with multi-team dependencies, did that effectively and maintained and evolved them over time.
I've seen an Architect who is still doing the coding, but they are never available when you need them. I've seen an Architect who is always available, but so far removed from actual project that their advice is only somewhat worse (if they are good — or a lot worse if they are bad) than what a good senior in the team engineer or tech lead would offer. And an Architect who would happily design for the use cases that might come in 2 years (read never) using complex abstractions only they can understand, leading to decoupling of architectural pieces to 10 teams which could be built better by 1 or 2.
Do I want our industry to be regulated by these folk? No.
> For example, under what constraint regime should the calculator app bundled with an OS be written? It's just a little bundled toy app. Until someone under pressure uses it to calculate a medicine dose, expecting it to be a calculator like it says.
This captures a sentiment I have often felt when people don't take bugs seriously. Or don't take it seriously that they introduced regressions. You should feel personal responsibility for your bugs. When your shit doesn't work, and people are trying to use it, you are basically hurting them, personally.
But it seems with the increase of AI coding, the industry is going the other direction. Nobody seems to care about bugs introduced by slop coding. Except perhaps the users.