July CinArc hosted some pretty lively discussion on a number of architecture issues. Apparently, according to @fallenrogue, the conversation heated up after the food.  I ducked out right at dinner to attend a friend’s birthday gathering so I can’t attest to that, but I’m bummed I missed it.  I got to spend some conversation time before the meeting with @mattbrewer - Matt, thanks for the discussion, and it turns out I’m on the list for one of the next 4 MBPs that get distributed.  We have them on-site, so now its a matter of turning them loose.  Hopefully sometime in the next month.

CinArc is a fishbowl discussion of architecture topics, so it’s difficult to write about a particular topic in any structured manner. Here are some of the nuggets of wisdom I digested from the first half of the evening.

On the “abilities” - scalability and interoperability were touched on here.

• Is the database the bottleneck in scaling an application?  Sometimes a database is not the right answer.  Perhaps a search engine is the right tool.  Consider Lucene.
• Solve the real problem, not the assumed problem

ORM Pros and Cons: do you write your own framework?  Or use an existing one?

• Developers should write the code that is valuable to their particular business and can only be written by them.
• Enterprise requirements may dictate a framework so that all implementations across development teams are similar.
• Why leverage a framework when I can write my own doing exactly what I need it to do?  Seriously.  I can make it efficient and small.
• A framework pushes testing and maintenance of that code to another organization which allows you more room for profit on your project.  Consistently see 10% - 15% cost drop by leveraging a framework.

Other

• “But you can’t sue ‘em” - On OS vs. MS and why OS is not selected
• You can’t abstract critical thought.  That’s the role of an architect.  The architect provides the critical thought in the process.

Special mention to Matt Brewer who turned, idunno, say 10 shades of red when he finally did get off his butt and take a seat at the table.

Good to see Dan, Phil, Ron, Michael, Brian, some folks from Indy, Leon, Mike, Mike, and MaggiePlusPlus - oh wait, she wasn’t there.  She got me all paranoid that I’ll forget to mention her if she was there :)  Anyone else, sorry if I forgot to mention you.  Feel free to add your $.02 below!

- Andy