Who taught me to think like a Software Architect?

I went to school for Electronic Engineering and while I was there I worked a job in logistics. When I worked there I learned that warehouse hubs looked a lot like electronic components when viewed on a schematic. They all had properties that effected the flow and the storage of goods, much like electric current and its relationship to the components of electronic circuits.

But that is not how I learned to think like an architect.

After college I worked in the electronic engineering field for several years. I learned quickly that engineering is 80% planning and doing paperwork, 15% testing, and only 5% fun (building stuff). This is where I learned to accept engineering could be gruelingly boring.

But that is not where I learned to think like an architect.

I have read almost every book and paper available on architecture, OOAD, and the languages I program with, but they are also not where I learned to think like an architect.

I have had the pleasure of working with some brilliant people, who have taught me a lot, but not how to think like an architect.

When I was a kid I had the pleasure of working as a carpenter's helper. I got the glory jobs of lugging bricks to the brick layers, hauling the truck loads of wood that were dropped in a huge pile to the builders, tarring the foundations, insulating the attics in well above 100% temperatures, cleaning up and burning the garbage, and hauling wet cement in wheelbarrows all over the place.

I also got to do some of the fun stuff like framing and roofing. My boss was a perfectionist in the extreme and it was rare when we had teammates that could live up to his expectations. It was even rarer if I did. I watched him disassemble whole walls that I had built slightly off the mark.

One day when hauling plywood (2 or 3 pieces at a time) for the roof to the second floor of a house, he yelled out, what are you doing, that will take all day, just throw it up?!?!? The second floor was framed, so I would have to throw it through it between studs. He came down to show me how, and he threw 3 or 4 pieces up and they landed right on top of each other. I attempted it about 4 or 5 times smashing them into the studs every time. Eventually he just had me hand them up to him through the wall, 2 at a time of course.

This builder was amazing. In his later years he built houses on his own. People would setup chairs to watch him set roof trusses by himself.

This is where I learned to think like an architect. Not only from being on the job site, but from watching him off the job site as well. Everything he did he planned for. He drew up an architecture for everything he did. From his daughters play house, to pool out back, to the horse barn he built, and ever house he built. I was always amazed at how the different architectural views to his homes fit together to explain the architecture as a whole.

His planning and experience allowed for his agility. On site mini planning sessions would be done drawing out the plan on a piece of 2x4 (wood). Seeing the finish product was always amazing and satisfying.

This builder is my Dad. After all the books I have read, projects I have been on, schools I have attended, and others I have worked with, what he taught me about work ethic and planning is still at the center of any successes I have had in this field of Software Architecture.

Thanks Dad, and Happy Fathers Day!!!!

P.S. At the age of 50, my Dad pulled a Forrest Gump on us and decide to start running. He has run a ton of marathons, including Boston, over Breckenridge, and in Hawaii.