Simon is a hands-on software architect who works within 
[Twitter] simonbrown: wondering whether Adobe's commercial approach to Flex Builder will limit adoption of Flex ... which will be a shame, because I quite like it
[Coding the Architecture] As mentioned before, we were speakers at, and community sponsors of the Software Architect 2008 conference (3rd-5th June 2008, London). This is the first dedicated software architecture conference that I've been to and the majority of the ...
Upselling your architecture
(also known as The BS Factor, sometimes)
You've probably noticed this yourself but never really given it much thought. How many times have you looked at a new piece of technology, framework or project and thought, "wow, that looks complicated, I wonder how they've done that"? Then, when you do look under the covers, what you thought would be complicated is actually fairly straightforward. It may be really clever, but it's more straightforward than you thought. Here you have an example of people "upselling" their architecture.
Let's take an example. Imagine an architect presents their web application, which itself includes the ability to deal with XML-RPC requests. You might hear one of the following statements.
- We have an additional Java Servlet that listens to XML-RPC requests.
- We have a fully integrated XML-RPC infrastructure.
Both statements describe the same thing at different levels, bringing with them different levels of complexity and mystique. The first is very factual and the second has a definite sales spin on it.
I think that both are valid approaches and each creates a different perception of yourself. As an architect, you'll probably need to present to different audiences at different levels. When you do, it's worth thinking about whether you need to upsell your architecture or not.
