Comments on: In praise of architecture astronauts http://www.megginson.com/blogs/quoderat/2007/01/04/in-praise-of-architecture-astronauts/ what was Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:36:38 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: John Price http://www.megginson.com/blogs/quoderat/2007/01/04/in-praise-of-architecture-astronauts/#comment-19778 John Price Tue, 09 Jan 2007 16:21:56 +0000 http://www.megginson.com/blogs/quoderat/2007/01/04/in-praise-of-architecture-astronauts/#comment-19778 I think you've made a false dichotomy between the extremes of "Astronauts" and "Pedestrians" and then concluded that since we need at least *some* abstraction to make anything useful, Astronauts are the way to go. Fortunately, there's a whole range of options between the the two. There aren't "two ways for an Astronaut to approach XML": by the definition of an Astronaut, they'll approach it the bad way. It's the people that occupy that middle ground between the Astronauts and the Pedestrians that will approach it in a "good" way and produce something useful. I think you’ve made a false dichotomy between the extremes of “Astronauts” and “Pedestrians” and then concluded that since we need at least *some* abstraction to make anything useful, Astronauts are the way to go. Fortunately, there’s a whole range of options between the the two.

There aren’t “two ways for an Astronaut to approach XML”: by the definition of an Astronaut, they’ll approach it the bad way. It’s the people that occupy that middle ground between the Astronauts and the Pedestrians that will approach it in a “good” way and produce something useful.

]]> By: UpToEleven.ca » Architecture Fighter Pilots http://www.megginson.com/blogs/quoderat/2007/01/04/in-praise-of-architecture-astronauts/#comment-19777 UpToEleven.ca » Architecture Fighter Pilots Tue, 09 Jan 2007 16:06:39 +0000 http://www.megginson.com/blogs/quoderat/2007/01/04/in-praise-of-architecture-astronauts/#comment-19777 [...] The other day, I came across a post entitled “In Praise of Architecture Astronauts“, suggesting that the alternative is Architecture Pedestrians. Where Architecture Astronauts live up in space in the ISS (Ivory Space Station) working on heady abstractions and generalizing to the nth degree, Architecture Pedestrians have their feet stuck tightly to the ground, never daring to generalize past the first level, keeping themselves firmly rooted in practical matters. You can’t write good software without abstractions, so Astronauts must be better than Pedestrians, right? [...] [...] The other day, I came across a post entitled “In Praise of Architecture Astronauts“, suggesting that the alternative is Architecture Pedestrians. Where Architecture Astronauts live up in space in the ISS (Ivory Space Station) working on heady abstractions and generalizing to the nth degree, Architecture Pedestrians have their feet stuck tightly to the ground, never daring to generalize past the first level, keeping themselves firmly rooted in practical matters. You can’t write good software without abstractions, so Astronauts must be better than Pedestrians, right? [...]

]]> By: lb http://www.megginson.com/blogs/quoderat/2007/01/04/in-praise-of-architecture-astronauts/#comment-19746 lb Tue, 09 Jan 2007 03:15:40 +0000 http://www.megginson.com/blogs/quoderat/2007/01/04/in-praise-of-architecture-astronauts/#comment-19746 "generic tree markup" yep -- that there is the goodness. i like your conclusion! “generic tree markup”

yep — that there is the goodness. i like your conclusion!

]]> By: Eliot Kimber http://www.megginson.com/blogs/quoderat/2007/01/04/in-praise-of-architecture-astronauts/#comment-19492 Eliot Kimber Fri, 05 Jan 2007 16:42:30 +0000 http://www.megginson.com/blogs/quoderat/2007/01/04/in-praise-of-architecture-astronauts/#comment-19492 I will second Uche's comments: I think you've stated it exactly right: it's about generic trees, not syntax. I will second Uche’s comments: I think you’ve stated it exactly right: it’s about generic trees, not syntax.

]]> By: Uche Ogbuji http://www.megginson.com/blogs/quoderat/2007/01/04/in-praise-of-architecture-astronauts/#comment-19462 Uche Ogbuji Thu, 04 Jan 2007 19:50:45 +0000 http://www.megginson.com/blogs/quoderat/2007/01/04/in-praise-of-architecture-astronauts/#comment-19462 Bravo, Solomon. In my opinion you landed a knock-out blow to put this one to sleep. I thought Dare's post was terribly overstated. For one thing JSON folks are also always trying to compare their *format* to XML, and so by Dare's reasoning they are also missing the point and JSON too has too many architecture astronauts. In the end, every technology choice builds on warfare between architecture astronauts and pedestrians, because sometimes the As have it (e.g. Web and P2P as you illustrate), and sometimes the Ps (e.g. Wiki vs CMS to pick a random example). And most of us are As in one case and Ps in another. Seems commonsense to me, but nevertheless thanks for arguing the point so graciously. Bravo, Solomon. In my opinion you landed a knock-out blow to put this one to sleep. I thought Dare’s post was terribly overstated. For one thing JSON folks are also always trying to compare their *format* to XML, and so by Dare’s reasoning they are also missing the point and JSON too has too many architecture astronauts. In the end, every technology choice builds on warfare between architecture astronauts and pedestrians, because sometimes the As have it (e.g. Web and P2P as you illustrate), and sometimes the Ps (e.g. Wiki vs CMS to pick a random example). And most of us are As in one case and Ps in another. Seems commonsense to me, but nevertheless thanks for
arguing the point so graciously.

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