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Discussion on: Coding is after Design.

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shingeki profile image
Joshua Alexander-Pua

I really feel like you have missed the point here. They are not talking about an engineer creating solutions without considering the code base. They are just describing the importance of the solution architect role and the timing of their input.

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somerandomuser profile image
Some random user • Edited

Hey Joshua,

Thanks for your reply!

I really feel like you have missed the point here.
I hope I did, but even after reading your comment and the article again multiple times I can't see it.

They are not talking about an engineer creating solutions without considering the code base.

The article does not explicitly call out that the code base should be ignored but the article does literally say that the software designer does not write "a single line of" code. That is in my understanding very detached from the code base.
The article also states that the outcome from that software designer "is then handed to a team of programmers".
This divide between design and implementation has historically lead to many problems down the line. Which is why an upfront design is usually frowned upon in an agile development model and as mentioned above the example describe here sounds a lot like ivory tower architecture.

The whole approach in my understanding is describing an organisational disconnect between the design and the implementation that reminds me of a time before we had devops where application engineers would write their application which "is then handed to a team of" operations people, which is an equally bad disconnect.

If I am misunderstanding this article then for everyone else reading this by all means feel free to ignore my comments.
But I think it would help to update the wording a bit so that other readers don't come to the conclusion (like me) that the article is advocating these outdated practices.