I wrote this text in 2017. Publishing it here because the ideas haven’t aged. If anything changed over the years, it’s how clearly I see I was right.
If you think good architecture is expensive, try bad architecture. — Brian Foote and Joseph Yoder
Software architecture is nothing more than a hypothesis. Even when you “prove” it by implementing, it remains an assumption. Only long after a product’s death can you attempt any verdicts. Most of the time it’s pub talk — describing feelings from a piece of music. Skill is in the eye of the beholder, and software architecture is merely a sum of money, time, and effort on the cross‑section of incomplete knowledge, hypotheses, fears, doubts, and occasional euphoria. We ask questions and run experiments. We ship and discover. A glance, a storm, emotions — and decay.
The Cemetery of Projects
Every developer, like a doctor, has their own cemetery. A graveyard of projects that died because of their decisions. Sometimes, in a dream, I walk through it, read the stones, and ask: “what if?” In reality, architecture is PowerPoint slides and boxes on a whiteboard; a description of an ideal dating profile that’s infinitely far from the writhing rainbow octopus of an LSD trip — the real project.
The Cost of Transition
I want to believe the energy crisis ends with a surge of growth thanks to a new layer of tech. We tend to forget the price of transition. Looms and early industrialization in England — a third of the population “moved” to a conveniently timed war. Reality resists change; it’s amorphous and rarely a hammer in a Luddite’s hand. It’s the silent, hungry pressure of 95% of people. The scariest thing is the in‑between that sometimes lasts until the end.
Born from the Old
Every project is born from an old one. It’s scary when the parent is frail and can’t feed the child, but projects aren’t people and engineers — like doctors — aren’t allowed to feel when lips turn blue and the body reroutes blood to save the brain. Forget the numbing fingers — tilt the patient head‑down to bite a bit more time from death, hoping to stitch arteries and save the preemie. Your new project.
Speed and Hope
Speed and coordination matter. Everything else — later. No time for reflection. No time for compassion. Only hope. Hope for a miracle. For your new architecture. For it to live.
This text doesn’t claim truth. It’s an emotional slice of a moment when you realize architecture isn’t about “being right,” it’s about choosing between bad and worse — and hoping your choice is good enough.
