Lately I had a discussion with a colleague about software architects and new technology. I had the same discussion with a friend, who stated that is a software architect doesn't keep her/his knowledge up to date she/he can't correctly fill the role of an architect.

In search of an answer I came across these sites:

• http://www.codingthearchitecture.com/pages/book/role.html
• http://www.infoq.com/articles/brown-are-you-a-software-architect
• http://softarc.blogspot.com/2007/06/how-to-spot-dreaded-non-coding.html

These sites describe the role of a software architect and that this kind of architect needs to keep her/his hands in the mud. The question is: in what way do we need to keep our hands in the dirt. To answer this I'm going a little philosophical on you.

Modernism versus post-modernism

If you're reading my blog for a while, you might know I'm (mostly) a post-modern thinker. This influences my vision on this question. In what way has epistemology anything to say about technology? Let's elaborate on that.

One of the differences between the two, that come from their epistemology, is their view on progression. Progress for modernism is growing and getting better. The way we do things now is better than we did them and they are still getting better. The post-modernistic view is that there is no progress. We don't do anything or better than we did them before: we just do things differently. For example, e-mail changed the way we communicate in writing, but it's basically the same written communication as we did by regular mail. The most people nowadays, especially technicians, are modernistic thinkers. As we look back 20, 10 or 5 years, maybe more or less years, we can't imagine how life was without the progression we made. We see it as old-fashioned or primitive. It's sometimes hard to think otherwise. The way we did things in the 1950's are the same things we do now, only differently.

Conclusion

I have to admit: it's a good thing for software architects to keep in touch with development and new technology used in development. Especially since we have to give our advise on this new technology. On the other hand I don't think it is necessary for an architect to keep writing code (in a team or otherwise). It is a good thing as a hobby, but not a requirement for the role.

Mostly it is keeping up with the terminology and how techniques should and can be used best. If you were an experiences developer before you became a software architect, you should follow new techniques by reading about it or by going to presentations (whatever works for you). I think this will be enough to keep up, give good advise and keep your opinions up to date.

The software architect role is more about soft-skills than hard-skills. Yes, you need hard-skills to have a good bases for the soft-skills. But, in my opinion, it's the soft-skills, like communication, coaching and leadership (politics and organizational awareness among other things) that you'll need to do a good job as a software architect. But here is a balance.