Sunday, January 15, 2006

Legacy Architects and SOA

"Jeff - I've seen 5 paradigm changes - this one looks just like what we were doing 10 years ago with CORBA. I'm not sure why you expect anything different..."

I often find myself attending meetings with 'legacy architects'. You know the kind - the guys that love to remind you that 'nothing is new' - hence, we shouldn't expect any new results.



Thoughts...
1. 'Legacy Architects' or 'Last Gen Architects', if you prefer, remain quite ignorant about SOA-WS.
2. In a paradigm shift, 'Pessimistic Architects' have a much higher likelihood of failure than 'Optimistic Architects'.

I don't mind ignorant architects - however I have a true disdain for perpetually ignorant architects - the kind who refuse to learn what they don't know. These people can kill an SOA program. Find them - remove them if you can, contain them if you can't.

Pessimistic architects are good; perpetually pessimistic architects are bad. If the people leading your SOA program don't believe in SOA - you are likely doomed. Understanding the limitations of a computing model doesn't take a great architect - quite frankly, any half-assed architect can find holes in any model. Great architects are the ones that mitigate holes and while getting the entire organization completely pumped up about making the transition. Great architects push the acceptance over the chasm - past critical mass. They will have plenty of arrows in their back - mostly shot from the bows of 'perpetually ignorant architects'.

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