A pragmatic view of the system architect

Reviewer: David W. Burry

As one would expect from the title, “no attempt is made in this paper to be theoretical.” Instead, a view of the role of the system architect, “based on the author's own experience as a system architect on three separate projects during the past six years,” is presented. In a short space, a fairly complicated software development model is detailed. There are no major departures from current thinking on software development. Perhaps as a reflection of the pragmatic viewpoint, there is a refreshing emphasis on “turf” and “accountability.” These are issues which this reviewer feels are often ignored in theoretical treatments. Unfortunately, the author has missed an important element of the pragmatic approach. Funk and Wagnalls' dictionary defines pragmatism as “the doctrine that thought or ideas have value only in terms of their practical consequences, and that results are the sole test of the validity or truth of ones belief.” This paper makes no attempt to apply this pragmatic validity test to the ideas presented. Although the reader easily senses that there are six years of practical experience underlying the author's beliefs, there is little attempt to convince us of their correctness by direct reference to this experience. I would not recommend this paper to someone looking for new ideas or new arguments (pragmatic or theoretical) for current ideas in software development. An individual looking for a short overview of a software development model with a practical orientation may find the paper suitable.