posted 5 years ago
Junilu,
Hi! Yes, you are right, we are advocating "architects who code." In our experiences, we've too often seen the "PowerPoint architect" who has a great ability to create architectural visions and lovely-looking diagrams, but doesn't have any appreciation for what developers really need, nor what is practical. Then these "visions" get crammed down people's throats and we have a mess. CORBA, data warehouses, SOA - there are so many examples of misusing these technologies in a "too big" way.
However, architects who *can* code and who also *do* code, in guest spots on teams, etc. are really valuable. Now you have someone who has a bigger picture view, but who also has to live with their own decisions in the depths of the code. Even better, limit the number of enterprise architects in the company and allow the teams to make decisions together about standards and architectures, etc.
Daryl