i want to understand, is it necessary that the Architect[or wanna be] should be very good in programming?
If he is good then nothing like it. But regardless of programming knowledge, he should be good in analyzing the requirement.
If there is a proj, which involves lot of technologies, say C,C++, MFC, Java, ERP(s), DB, .... etc. should the architect have worked on all these techs or only he can architect the project w/ or w/o the above programming exp. if he doesn't have hands on exp, will it not impact the project.
There are different level of architects.
1. Enterprise Architect: He must be able to work on all the technologies as he works at bit higher level.
2. Application Architect: He need to have good knowledge on particular technology, C, C++ or Java.
3. Designer: This is a kind of pre architect role and sometimes App arch end up playing this role. They involve in very low level design, i.e. defining all the methods with inout attributes, helper classes etc.
Hope this gives more inputs.