If you are in software development, or read about it, or have anything much to do with it, you probably hear a lot of different job descriptions. There are Project Managers, Programmers, Designers… and there are Architects.
“[Architect]’s a fancy name for a programmer. It means I’m old.”
I was just watching the Channel 9 video revealing Sparkle (haven’t actually seen the product demo yet, the video’s downloading slow because there’s a link from /.), and heard a great description of what a software architect is.
It’s a couple minutes into the video. Scoble is talking to John Gossman, and asks him what he does on the project. John replies that he is an architect, so Scoble asks (reasonably enough) what an architect does. John laughs.
“It’s a fancy name for a programmer,” John replies. “It means I’m old.”
