World Wide Webber

From '94-'96 I worked on a project where the architects were located on the other side of the country, *and worked for a separate company* (it was a joint venture, but still). We hardly dealt with them, except when they showed up to try and clean up the mess ... a mess that was in large part a result of them not being around. Top that! 8-(

"As a side-note, when did architects move away from software and into ivory towers? From my personal experience I guess it was at the end of 2003..." 

It's seemed a pretty common anti-pattern for a heck of a long time. I was having to deal with non-coding architects in the early nineties myself, and it didn't seem like a new thing then. 

One of the reasons I switched from a full time job to consulting in the late nineties was because I felt pushed towards a non-programming architect/manager role. 

In fact the pressure now feels to be in the other direction. The agile methodologies are pushing back at the whole external architect idea.

You know my thoughts on this one (and my restraint!) and I've put my most recent rant down here http://jagraham.blogspot.com/2005/09/ivory-penthouses-of-architecture.html 

See you in a month mate! Go the Aussies!

I just read this post & it hit a raw nerve with me. I had last month attended an Architects conference in Sydney & am very interested in where Architecture in IT is heading. I had some very interesting discussions with some of the presenters (very good people) but came away with the growing conviction that as the profession of 'IT Architect' evolves we are starting to see the unfortunate separation of hands on real-world experience & people who Architect solutions without it. 

I just can't see how an SOA Architect can be good at his architecting role if he doesn't understand simple fundamentals of XML. 

In reflecting on this I am reminded of one of my great heros - Mr Lloyd-Wright who as an Architect often knew the materials he designed with better than the suppliers & workers who worked with it. 

I believe we may be entering a period where some long serving IT professionals carve out job niches for themselves, taking on the title 'Architect', when they have no real desire to fully understand (touch & feel) the underlying technologies they expect to see used to implement their architected solutions. 

D Marker

Glad you posted that link, I found that article thought provoking. Doesn't look like you have trackbacks enabled... here are my thoughts - http://scottmark.blogspot.com/2005/11/ivory-tower-of-enterprise-architecture.html