
If architects had to work like software developers - johns
http://blog.monochrome.co.uk/2009/02/if-architects-had-to-work-like-software-developers/
======
raganwald
As mentioned elsewhere, this is so old that the original is thought to have
been written in cuneiform around the time of the Sumerians.

But since it may be new to some... Here are some of the observations on this
post I have found interesting:

1\. What makes you think Architects don't have to deal with fickle customers
who have no concept of time, space, or budget?

2\. Every project of any description needs a change control process. If yours
consists of exchanging emails, it is going to go this way whether you're a web
developer or a tailor.

3\. The more expertise a customer thinks they have in the subject matter
relative to you, the more comfortable they are micro-managing it. What have
you done to educate the customer about how much expertise you bring to their
project?

~~~
swombat
Funnily enough, my cofounder _is_ an architect. And from the tales he (and his
architect friends) tell me, yes, architecture clients are just as fickle.

They have loads of self-contradicting stakeholders too (particularly for
larger buildings). And they change their mind about the costs. And they get
architects to design something to get bids in and then change their mind about
half the building. And they want everything, done quickly, cheap, and the
highest quality. And they change their requirements. And they expect the
architect to adapt to this. And if the architect makes a mis-step in this
complex client management process, they will typically get sued and lose
money.

I think one way in which architecture is actually much more difficult than
software development is that architects often have to pour their heart and
soul into a project to design the most amazing building, only to have it
cancelled at the last minute. It's a common practice for developers to get
architects to design a cool building and get planning permission for it, only
to raise the value of the land (by showing that cool stuff can be built on it)
so that they can sell it on to someone else (who will of course want something
completely different).

To me, that would be very disheartening, because those buildings are often
quasi-artistic creations that take a lot of creative energy, and giving it my
all time and time again only to have my projects regularly canned and
forgotten would just depress me.

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RiderOfGiraffes
<rant>

Yes it's funny, yes it's clever, yes it's too close to the truth, but he's
quoted it without even mentioning that it's been around for years. Author
unknown, but a brief Google search shows references at least 16 years old, but
it's been around longer than that.

At least he could have the decency to admit he didn't write it.

</rant>

Edited as I find still older references.

1993: <http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~mikeb/Architects.pdf>

~~~
bobs
Uh, it does say the author is unknown

~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
That's been added. Google's cache of the page doesn't have it. I don't know
how long this reference will last, I don't know how Google's caching system
works, and the wayback machine doesn't seem to have it. However, here's a
link:

[http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:xnQVWK8a5AsJ:blog.monoc...](http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:xnQVWK8a5AsJ:blog.monochrome.co.uk/2009/02/if-
architects-had-to-work-like-software-
developers/+%22Please+design+and+build+me+a+house%22+site:blog.monochrome.co.uk)

Clearly he's noticed that people are dissing him for plagarism and changed it
without acknowledging it.

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pfedor
OTOH if software developers had to work like architects, you would need to
have a degree and several years of experience making coffee for more senior
engineers before you were even allowed near a text editor. After that, you
could write your own programs, but to actually run them through a compiler you
would still need someone who has passed the bar exam, and you'd have to give
them a cut of whatever you make off your software.

~~~
ibsulon
Well, that certainly would make for better software, albeit more expensive...

~~~
Zak
I have to disagree. It would make for less buggy software, but I suspect not
for software that people want. The best way we know how to make products
people want is to get a basic version released and iterate rapidly.

~~~
gaius
As the architecture model fails to construct buildings people want?

People's wants are easily defined once cash money is involved in most
industries...

~~~
swombat
Applying these hurdles to software would be senseless, because the cost of bad
software is infinitely smaller than the cost of bad architecture.

99.999% of software is never in a position to kill someone if it fails
catastrophically. 99.999% of buildings are.

------
nw
I believe the problem stems from a misconception on both sides of the table.
What passes for design in the software world is little more than what an
architect might sketch on a napkin over dinner.

The code is the design. What other deliverable of the software development
process contains the precision and specificity of a blueprint, which can then
be followed to actually build (the double entendre is no coincidence) the
thing?

A contractor equates to a compiler, albeit an expensive, time-consuming, and
buggy one.

I don't think clients are so much to blame... it's just that software is so
abstract and a house so, shall we say, concrete. We need to do a better job of
helping clients understand and visualize what we are doing.

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gruseom
Some architects do. There is an old BBC (I think) broadcast showing
Christopher Alexander building a house. He goes to the site with the people
who will live in the house, asks them what they have in mind. He has a
scaffolding built, then asks the people to sit on the scaffolding in different
places and talk about how it feels. Based on that, the rooms are decided, and
so on. The house is built incrementally using feedback; there is no up-front
plan. Admittedly, Alexander is far beyond the pale of mainstream architecture,
but this is way cool.

~~~
aprrrr
That was in the BBC adaptation of "How Buildings Learn" by Stewart Brand. Both
the book and the miniseries (which is on Youtube in segments) are excellent.

I heard about Christopher Alexander from his renown in programming circles. I
wonder how he is viewed in the architectural mainstream?

~~~
gruseom
I believe he's largely held in contempt, either ignored or dismissed as a
loon. Unfortunately, Alexander has done a few things to paint himself into
this corner. He seems to have a need to be regarded as a world-historical
genius, which isolated him and turned his work into something a bit cultish.
That's a great pity because his core ideas are so vital.

~~~
tempest67
That's correct, in the USA, at least -- although they seem to think better of
him in Germany (at least, they did a decade ago). He did pioneering work on
using computers for design at MIT in the sixties -- but it never really took
off, or even worked terribly well. "Pattern Language" is seen as naive and
ridiculous in the "top" schools -- but I agree with gruseom that there's a lot
of wisdom there. We'll come back to it, as the cycles make their slow turn
away from mannerism.

------
ivyirwin
I am formally trained as an architect and I believe there are plenty of
overlaps between architecture and programming. In fact, it was a series of
computer science programming classes in college that reinforced my desire to
study architecture. I found the problem solving and methodology very similar
in both disciplines.

I now split time between the two domains (programming and architecture) and
find that my work continues to overlap, but that's what makes it enjoyable.

------
boredguy8
Architects do contract work with those types of situations. A lot of IT best
practices come from decades of learning from the world of construction. If it
costs 80% of your budget to fix a mistake after you're pouring concrete,
you're going to make sure you know just where every joint and truss is going
to be.

The cost of change for IT can be similarly daunting. The better we do at
understanding what people are looking for up front, the better we're able to
deliver what they want. And if they're unsure what they want, perhaps we can
help them figure out what they need.

Just like in designing a home.

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seldo
The missing stipulation is that the owner would like the move from his old
home to his new home to be seamless, without disrupting his family life in any
way.

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anigbrowl
Roof falls in - oh well, tenant didn't move in yet. Hit undo, problem solved.
The design part may well be more difficult, but the build cycle's pretty damn
easy by comparison. You can get away with a lot more as a programmer than you
can as an architect, I think :-)

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intellectronica
I don't find these so funny, because it's obvious to me that there is no
single paradigm that fits all disciplines. Architects are not like software
developers, operating systems are not like airlines, etc'...

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jamesjyu
This also applies to any form of web design.

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gaius
In Soviet Russia, architects _do_ work like software developers.

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abalashov
Perfect! I am sending this to every one of my customers now.

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gcanyon
This sounds like a passage from The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.

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c00p3r
why not - just $75/h.

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RyanMcGreal
Incidentally, that 3D tag cloud makes me want to punch myself in the face.

