Should application architects write code?

Answer 1

Architecture is a high-level role and should be not be concerned about implementation >details

The code is the design. Imagine an architech who designs pretty buildings but refuse to go into implementation details like where to put the mergency exits, plumbing, electricity, elevators or builiding legal issues.

* Coding is a detailed oriented, heads-down funtion which is at odds

with the risk management, broad view nature of architecture

When you code, at first, focus on the details. Then you refactor with a broader focus.

Architecture is about leadership. It's difficult to lead from behind

The battle front of software development is coding. May be the product manager or the project manager does not code. But the architect needs to do it. May be he should spend more time refactoring showing how good can code be. This way he leads by example.

Answer 2

I don't think that they need to be coding everything in the application. But they should be given some tasks. Some "architects" are basically hacks with no technical experience who pass themselves off as "legendary coders" and design systems that add weeks or months to the amount of work you would have had to do if you didn't have an architecture. If they can't write code they have no business being in that role...Because the idea is an architecture should make the application easier to develop and maintain. But if the architect cannot develop, how would he or she know how to make an architecture?

Also, even the best architects make bad decisions. Sometimes something looks great on the white board but then in reality an architectural decision ends up making things a lot harder than they should be. If the architect has to eat his/her own dogfood (and use the architecture) they are more inclined to want to correct bad decisions or to architect ways around them. Also by touching the code they are at least a little familiar with it. So if a developer comes to them with a coding issue, the architect's eyes won't glaze over as he/she dismisses the developer and says the developer is doing it wrong but offers no insight onto the right way to do it.

The architect doesn't need to be doing big projects within the code base. But they should at least be doing small tasks within the code base that force them to use their own architecture. Also the small tasks will probably involve reading a lot of other people's code to give them a sense for how people are using the architecture and whether anything can be done to improve it.

Answer 3

Would just writing the interfaces count as code? If so, then this is the minimum I'd expect from an architect, while in other cases it may be much more code from them such as classes with stubs for methods.

Answer 4

To the risk of deviating from the topic...

On a large scale application, it may not be possible for an architect to stay updated with the code being written. Also, it would not be possible for him to write the code because of other important responsibilities. Having said that, I would recommend, the architect should not loose the big picture about the code base being developed. This can be achieved by monitoring the code base for code coverage, metrics about code quality, static code analysis, etc. He should regularly assess the code quality using the mentioned criteria. The practices of 'continuous integration' can help here.

Answer 5

Yes. Software architects who haven't written code for years lose touch with the realities of building a product. They start producing grand designs with ever-higher levels of abstraction, which seem to keep slipping their ship dates.

Answer 6

I (think I) am an architect, coding is what makes this job fun.

Then you see your ideas are coming to life, you can see your design working, and you can see the errors in the design (too late anyway, but next time...)