I've been doing a lot of reading in mailing lists, blogs, and websites in general. Every once and a while I read about someone who's job description is "software architect". These are the guys who design the specifications used by everyone such as the Java Server Faces spec, JDBC spec, Java Connector Architecture spec, XML Schema spec, and even sophisticated messaging specs between systems that are so well designed that they do not change for several years.
After my recent work creating a connector using the Java Connector Architecture, I am humbled by the brilliance of the software architects who created the specification. Before using JCA, I had written two implementations that had a lot of the same ideas but were not as sophisticated and reusable.
I had planned on studying for the Sun Certified Enterprise Architect exam in 2007, and feel confident that I would be capable of getting it... but now I don't think that I would be happy calling myself a software architect even with a SCEA certificate. All of the architects that I admire are in their 40's and 50's. They have been working in the industry for decades and are in a whole other league. I think what I really need is more experience. I'm still quite young (24 years old) and have decades of software development ahead. I've only ever worked at one company, where almost every project is a one man project.
A couple of weeks ago I got an idea for a project to work on at home (yes an other one) that will form the foundation for two other project ideas that never got off the ground. Once I finish setting up my network the way I want (hopefully another month or so) then I will get started. This will give me even more experience in many areas of Java programming, design and documentation. If I get it to a usable point I'll likely create an open source project site for it on www.java.net.
Working from his home office in Toronto,
Ryan de Laplante can be found developing software in
Java by day, and obsessing with technology by night.
Ryan has been designing and writing software for
IJW since 1998 and is very passionate about his work.
