Many of us have reason to utter BOHICA! A word developed in IT land but applicable everywhere, especially by those who must do all the work when the Big Wig who takes all the credit comes up with another brilliant project. It is an acronym for Bend Over, Here It Comes Again.

You can learn other such terms at http://www.buzzwhack.com

From their Wack of the Week, in a complete string of gibberish:
“…Architected..”
AAAAAARGHitected

“…Architected..”

Without going into a long complicated defen(s,c)e, I believe it to be completely justifiable.

but not justified.

…architected… …not justified

It's a software term and relates to the way that software systems are made to relate to each other. It's jargon. If you can't stand the jargon stay out of the software lab.

…architected…

It's jargon.

But like the good (and funny) people at BuzzWhack, I wonder what is wrong with "designed."

stay out of the software lab

Indeed, Faldage, I ain't got no grumbles with the incomprehensible ravings of another speech community!

But this was a bloody PRESS RELEASE, for god's sake, designed to actually tell Jo Public something!

So what is wrong with 'designed'? - answer, it was written by a pretentious cretin with a pitiful command of the English language! [/rant]

Architects command higher honorariums than mere designers, so in a press release,architected may suggest a basis for a high price.

in the best of all possible software worlds, architecture comes before design. often architecture is skipped, and what you end up with is the standard OS (cf. DOS® and UNIX™)

As I understand, from talking about this issue with my boss (who is a software engineer with a degree in philosophy), is that design is something else entirely. It's like asking why you don't refer to what a bricklayer does as carpentry. And it isn't architects that architect, it's software engineers. There are different types of software engineers. Some code, some debug, some design and some architect.

Some code, some debug, some design and some architect.

I guess I can accept that as a valid piece of jargon (no negative connotation intended), but I just wish they had used a word other than 'architecture' for the concept, as it makes searching online for information about 'built architecture' (there's a retronym for ya) a pain in the ashlar!

Flatlander just wishes they had used a word other than 'architecture' for the concept

Aw*, then you'd just be micturating and puling about them inventing some neoplastic® word.

*Ænigma wants awad here!

And we still have the perfect right, whenever a particular speech community wants to drag its nasty little secrets out into the light of day, to protest that a particular term of art is unacceptable in the ordinary public discourse. What they say to each other is their own business.

Unfortunately, in that community, the term architect is the correct term. For a member of that community to use another term would be wrong. The alternative is for the user of the term architect to go into a long involved explanation of the meaning of architect. I don't know what the full context of this "unacceptable" term was. If it was in a technical article designed for the computer professional I can see no excuse for considering the term unacceptable. If it was in some publication aimed at a more general audience then perhaps the reporter quoting the computer professional should have included a sidebar explaining the term and perhaps other terms that may have been equally unfamiliar to the readers. If this was something you overheard in the local Pig & Whistle then I say caveat auditor.

I work in the ISB--which some people think stands for Information Services Branch--

but we who work here, recognize its stands for It Should Be...

It Should Be (working, active, on-line.. fill in with the work do choice..)

Architects command higher honorariums than mere designers

As a member of both worlds (a web designer and future real architect) I'd say that architects design buildings, therefore they are designers and things they design have been designed.

I don't care much for the new tech sense of architecture. If that sense gets too popular somewhere down the line someone will ask: "Who's Frank Lloyd Wright" "He was an architect" "Oh, I see, he made computer systems."

Ooooh, deary me, you all have gotten hot and botherated about this little item!

I have heard systems people talk about the architecture of a system (computer or database) and I'm sure they meant just that, architecture (all the bits and bytes as they relate to each other and the querries posed to the system), and not design. To us laymen it may seem a silly nuance, and when I talk about the architecture of a building (and not terribly knowledgably, I admit), I'm talking about something more than its design.

And yes, using architect as a verb is a bit much, just now.

(more dessert needed)

architect is used in other contexts than building and computing. Military campaigns, social and political systems, they have their "architects" too. Usually refering to the person putting the grand plan together rather than the more detailed design.

Rod

Architected...

What seems strange to me is that our traditional architects, have for years been planning, devising, designing, mapping out, laying out, etc. And now we have 'IT-architects', they go about architecting here and there.
If it's argot they crave, can't they come up with something new, instead of this slack verbification?

come up with something new

I guess that's half of what bugs me about this - they are trying to abbrogate a term already in widespread use, just to confer a glib veneer of respectability on their work. In other walks of life taking what is already owned by others is termed theft Now if they had the courage of their convictions, they would indeed have come up with a new word to properly refelct their dazzling vituosity..! It might even have been a tad less ugly than the sound of this verb form.

<<Can't they come up with something new, instead of this slack verbification? >>

"Architecht?"

Military campaigns, ... have their "architects" too. Usually refering to the person putting the grand plan together rather than the more detailed design.

Aren't they Strategists (grand plan) and Tacticians (detailed design)! OR ... Am I hoplessly out of date?

Military campaigns, ... have their "architects" too
Aren't they Strategists (grand plan) and Tacticians (detailed design)!

Yes they are that. I was just showing that the term architect had been widely used/abused before the IT industry. And there are two arguments her; firstly, whether architect is acceptable as a noun in the IT industry; and secondly, whether verbing it is acceptable.

I am happy with the first, but then I am in the IT industry and have had architect in my title or job description often enough. It seems a reasonable parallel (as far as I can find out from my real architect friends). I find the verbification ugly, but that is a general battle to be fought. Who is going to architect our grand campaign?

Rod

rodward finds the verbification ugly

How about architectificatatenize?

Yeah, that fits the elegant perfession that gave us Windoze

I've been both a database architect and a database designer.

The one pertains to tbe overall structure of the database system, not only in relation to the information it is going to store but also in terms of its relationships with the user, the computer system it runs on and other database systems with which it has to interact. The other, design, is determining what data gets stored where and the relationships between the data items which are being stored.

However, I loathe and detest the use of the verbified form "to architect". I can see no new meaning or nuances of existing meaning which can justify using it instead of designed, in exactly the same way that you would discuss the work of the architect of a house.

Jargon is useful in its place, but this is one term which belongs in the nether depths (with MacDonalds burgers).

bushwa. as has been demonstrated, architecture is different from design. why ambiguate things by using the same verb for both? furthermoreover and in the second place, architect has been extant as a verb since early 18C.

1818 Keats Let. 23 July (1931) I. 219 This was architected thus By the great Oceanus. 1890 Harper's Mag. Apr. 809/2 We would not give being the author of one of Mr. Aldrich's beautiful sonnets to be the author of many ‘Wyndham Towers’, however skilfully architected. 1912 Rose Macaulay Views & Vag. viii. 153, I have no sort of interest in the architecting or building trades. 1913 Raleigh Some Authors (1923) 3 He has come out of the prison-house of theological system, nobly and grimly architected. 1923 Public Opinion 29 June 622/3 A+vague notion that a building ought to be architected.

Glad to see you on my side, tsuwm, but.


Um, how to say this...

1818 is early 19th century.

um... that was my abbreviation for 1800s... yeah, that's the ticket.

18c (c={1}00)

I can live with that.

I don't recall claiming that the word doesn't exist. I simply claim that I avoid using it like the plague. And will continue to do so in spite of its fine pedigree.

>I avoid using it like the plague.

I also notice that you avoid the point that there is a distinction to be made between design and architecture. so give us a better verb to use than design, already. :-/

I also notice that you avoid the point that there is a distinction to be made between design and architecture. so give us a better verb to use than design, already. :-/

carry out/perform/do/design system architecture. Take your pick.

In reply to:

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1800s

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Is it just me, or has the meaning of this and similar expressions changed? I always thought 1800s meant the first decade of the 19th century rather than the whole century, so that we went 1800s, 1810s, 1820s, 1830s etc.

Bingley

tsuwm demands:
so give us a better verb to use than design, already.

besides those mentioned in my previous post, I offer 'to draw up' or 'to draft'. I do not think these are superior to 'to design' or 'to architect', but are at least, commonly used with respect to the architecture of sth. in my experience.

BTW, AHD gives the definition of architecture (with respect to Computer Science) as: 'The overall !design! of a computer system'.
A cold, hard case of six of one, half a dozen of the other here gentlemen?

the final word: Ænigma finds 'architect' no good, and offers 'architectonic' instead.

Bingley asks "Is it just me, or has the meaning of this and similar expressions changed? I always thought 1800s meant the first decade of the 19th century…"

It's just you, Bingley.

tsuwm dictionarificates architect has been extant as a verb since early 18C

Well sure, but I gather there are rafts of words cited in dictionaries which no longer have the same, or sometines perhaps any significant, meaning. Indeed, I understand some people keep whole databases designed around this architecture

>I understand some people keep whole databases designed around this architecture

architect doesn't qualify. it's overused.

it's overused

... so becoming worthless?

>carry out/perform/do/design system architecture. Take your pick.

not to be argumentative (well, that too ;), but one of the things we do all of the time is try to find a single word which will substitute for two or more. thus, 'architect' [or something more worthy] = 'carry out/perform/do/design system architecture'. using 'design', by itself, (as in "I design systems") is ambiguous."I architect systems" (to someone such as yourself) would be clear, although noisome. okay?

? I always thought 1800s meant the first decade of the 19th century rather than the whole century, so that we went 1800s, 1810s, 1820s, 1830s etc.
I would take the meaning of "the 1800's" according to context. If someone made a sweeping statement such as,
"the 1800's saw many societal changes, the primary one being the industrial revolution", I would take it that they meant the entire century. Perhaps this is a cultural difference? I have noticed, now that I think about it, that some British folk seem to put 19C to refer to the whole century. I don't think that's common in the U.S.

I always thought 1800s meant the first decade of the 19th century rather than the whole century, so that we went 1800s, 1810s, 1820s, 1830s etc.

I had an architectural history professor who drilled it into our heads that "the 1800's" (yes, with apostrophe) were a decade and not a century. I've given up on converting anyone else to this way of thinking, but it seems "correct" to me. I'm certainly not as adamant about it as she was (and I think she had a British education, Jackie), and I am happy to glean someone's meaning from context. The problem I have is with people who think I'm being too intellectual when I say "nineteenth century" instead. Grr.

I gotta go with Jackie on this. English is a context sensitive language. You can rant all you want about man referring only to males until you run into a man eating shark. Besides you gonna trust someone who thinks the plural of 1800 should have an apostrophe in it?

until you run into a man eating shark

But what if it's a shark that really doesn't like the taste of women?

Yes, I agree with your point about context sensitivity, Faldage and Jackie. OTOH, "19th century" is completely unequivocal for the whole caboodle. Strange thing is, that though I happily identify 1820s or 1980s as decades, that doesn't seem an obvious pattern below the twenties: 1910s doesn't automatically make me include 1917! No particular logic seems to be at work - anyone else find thsi pattern?

edit:Afterthought - maybe it's simply because there is less lexical uniformity below ~20. We sometimes say nineteen-oh-eight, sometimes ~and-one (a space oddity), and the teens are notoriously irregular

a shark that really doesn't like the taste of women

I might not care for myself but I wouldn't be ready to trust my AnnaS with hazy guesses about a shark's personal taste.

maybe it's simply because there is less lexical uniformity below ~20.

I agree. I'm anxious about how we'll decide to verbalize these new years we are in (YART alert). I know sign language users are wondering the same thing. Other languages probably face similar (though lexically very different) changes.

"a man eating shark."

I've eaten shark, but I did not enjoy it. A Japanese delicacy called "Kamaboko" (my guess at spelling.)

Some days you eat the shark, some days the shark eats you.

The good news is the second kind of day will only happen once.

Shark is tricky to prepare... something about the levels of uric acid in the meat. I have a vague recollection of soaking shark steaks in milk prior to cooking, but that could have been a surreal dream.

I was about to say something about shark not being too difficult to deal with, and being quite yummy with a citrus/vodka sauce a chef friend of mine introduced me to, but I will not turn this word thread into a food thread. I won't do it!

I will not turn this word thread into a food thread. I won't do it!

You don't have to, tree frog.

I guess I meant a thread about food for humans, rather than large marine predators, but looking back I see that Bill had already taken us down that path.

And that's tiny little green spotted tree frog, to you, Señor Faldaje.

Dear Fiberbabe: Sharks developed at a time or place where the water was not saline. When the water began to become salty, they began to retain so much urea in their body fluids that they were relatively isotonic with sea water. If you are interested here is a URL about it

http://www.science.mcmaster.ca/Biology/4S03/dm.html

You have to scroll down to D, where it talks about elasmobranchs (which includes sharks)

~and-one (a space oddity)
Oh, GOOD one, Aunt mav!

I hope that reviving old threads is not considered bad form here, but your post expressed my sentiments. The strident insistence that "architecting" is valid seems to come only from some in the 'IT' sector, and they seem in no hurry to explain why the "other" architects have no need of a unique verb to describe what they do. If Christopher Wren, Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe were happy to "design" buildings, why should the Johnny.com latelys in the software business feel such a pressing need to take a perfectly decent noun and bastardise it into an ugly verb? Surely if they really "must" have a verb all to themselves, they could invent one, rather than blag one? Perhaps they feel that stealing a grown-up word will solidify their rather amorphous job description.

Vernon>
The strident insistence that "architecting" is valid seems to come only from some in the 'IT' sector, and they seem in no hurry to explain why the "other" architects have no need of a unique verb to describe what they do.

Well said, Vernon!
It seems to me what the so-called "IT sector" are in a hurry for is to get to the "next best thing" and they are not taking the time to build their own vocabulary for their
"inventions" and their methodology.

chronist

It seems to me what the so-called "IT sector" are in a hurry for is to get to the "next best thing" and they are not taking the time to build their own vocabulary for their
"inventions" and their methodology.

Ah, but then you're making some incorrect assumptions about IT sector cohesion. Most terms are made up on the spot; those which sound appropriate are adopted on a kind of "catch-as-can" basis. Not everyone agrees with the outcomes (see my post above).

It was so much easier in the old days [nostalic rant] You started off as a computer programmer. progressed to being a systems analist, and perhaps became a data processing manager (or director) later on. Nobody talked of architecture - even though the old steam-driven computers were massive structures (and I am only refering to second generation m/cs here - the first generation computers were complete buildings in themselves!) Even third generation machines had rooms to themselves and teams of acolytes serving them. Perhaps it is because the machinery has become insignificant in stature that it needs to have grandiosity in its monenclature [/nostalgic rant]

Brick and mortar architects design buildings; in IT design is what software programmers do at a program level. In the brick and mortar milieu (Parm my French, E) we have city planners who plan. This verb is not seen as appropriate to the world of IT and isn't even all that much like what systems programmers do anyway. They could have invented some whole nother verb and what would y'all have done in the pule and micturate department about that? Would it help if it were pronounced with the emphasis on the second syllable in the manner of other noun/verb pairs? We could submit this proposal to the Acadamye of the Puriteye Propere of the Langage Inglisc if you'd like.

You're not fooling me ... ya'll just want new words invented so they can be discussed! HA!

I am sorry, Faldage, but your reply missed the point of my question. If "real" architects don't need a one word verbal phrase to describe their function why do IT "architects"? One could accurately decribe their job by saying "they design system architecture", rather than "they architect systems" Not one of the "architect" apologists has yet explained why those who design system architecture need a verb of their own. I do not dispute the existence of the word, I simply have not heard a justfication for its existence. Must there be a single word for everything?

Quite right, Vernon.

progressed to being a systems analist...

It's a mucky job, butt someone's gotta do it

I am sorry, but your reply missed the point of my question

I seem to be doing a lot of that lately ... taking things lightly ... Dr. Bill is there a pill for this condition?

Dear wow: if there were a pill for this condition, I would be selfish enough to keep them all for myself.

One could accurately decribe their job by saying "they design system architecture",

Bravo, Vernon! Been reading this thread with only a vague feeling that I didn't particularly like "architect" as a verb but no strong feeling one way or the other - until your post crystalized the issue. Thanks! I love having my muddy thinking clarified.

... I simply have not heard a justfication for its existence...

I, too, am waiting for Godot, but no matter how loud I call, it doesn't seem to speed up its arrival.

If "architected" upset you, I dare you to sample jargon at programmers' site:

http://info.astrian.net/jargon/terms/m.html

Vernon states: I am sorry, but your reply missed the point of my question.

Who are you addressing there, Vernon? Hard for me to keep up with the architecture unless you reference...

[passing around happy pills to one and all]

In reply to:

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Vernon states: I am sorry, but your reply missed the point of my question.

Who are you addressing there, Vernon? Hard for me to keep up with the architecture unless you reference...

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Thanks to help from wow, and from Max's site (thanks wwh, for your post suggesting it), I think I may have sorted out my poor quoting habits. I also discovered that one can edit posts after they have been made, and have modified the offending post.

have modified the offending post

... with the perfect courtesy of keeping the modification highlighted for the sake of clarity - thanks. HINT, WO'N, BIG HINT!!)