Is an archtiecture description always necessary?

I wrote in an earlier post about the importance of being able to write in a concise manner, based on the assumption that key issue for an architecture description is to convey an common understanding of the architecture (more on the validity of that assumption later in the blog).

What would happen if that line of thought is taken to it's extreme, i.e. nothing is written down about the architecture? How would one reach a degree of understanding among the team members? And especially a common understanding? Does it even need to be common?

Answering these questions could easily expand to an entire literature review of organisational learning and I'll try to avoid that. But an architecture description is a way to convert the tacit or internal knowledge (of the architects?) to explicit knowledge which in turn other stakeholders can internalise again. The question is of this transfer of knowledge can be spread through the organisation by other means?
I certainly think so, the same way I learned about electrical system in vehicles "on the job" rather than learning from books, but this requires working side by side on a recurring (daily?) basis. Feasible if the team is co-located in the same room, but it does not really scale if the desks are to far apart. One architect and 15 other developers is not a problem. One architect and 200 other developers is a problem.
I have a gut feel that this is related to how well agile practices scale to big projects...

After reading this post I realised I made an assumption that the architect is the main person having the knowledge about the architecture. Of course this must not always be the case. One alternative is the committe architectures I wrote about earlier, but there of course must exist other alternatives...

Committe architectures

I have observed that sometimes an architecture tends to get defined by a committee of all stakeholders (or representatives for them) rather than an architecture team. This in itself may not be bad but there are some things that seems to happen when this is the case:
First the architecture tends to be defined by a set of separate decisions that solves separate problems the stakeholders have. There is no overall vision of what the architecture should be. A lack of what Frederick P. Brooks call conceptual integrity.
Second the balancing of quality attributes seem to be an average of everything. The architecture is not really good on anything (maintainability comes to mind). On the other hand no quality attribute seems to be totally forgotten or neglected.
Third the description of the architecture is done at low level, e.g. a design or implementation level because this is what a majority of stakeholders are used to in doing their usual work.

"The other" car manufacturer...

"The other" car manufacturer has a new owner after General Motors. Good for them! We need the local competition to stay alert. Read the news here.

Experiencing To Troubleshoot the Defective Fuel Pump

It sucks when the fuel pump have defect. Because your engine will have empty after how many seconds in travel. I experience this when we are traveling from our City to the Province of Cebu. After we enjoying our travel. In the Middle of Enjoying. The engine suddenly stops. What the heck. Where all shock because we don't know yet how to diagnose for troubleshooting. After we rest for an hour. And starting engine again. The engine Start. its amazing. But after a kilometer travel. Suddenly stops again. Were continuous accelerating but still empty. Until we come in our destination. After we consult in the technician. We found out that our fuel pump are defective. Need to replace.

Overhauling 3 Cylinder Engine

I was on overhauling 3 cylinders engine. First i am disassembling the Engine assembly, and then i was going to remove  the oil pan. Then removing the oil strainer for the cause not to be tampered when removing another parts. Then i removed the crankshaft pulley (because there was no timing belt already). Because we buy that in aftermarket. But it still in good condition. After i remove the camshaft pulley because we are replacing the cam lobe because it was have to bad condition. It will not in standard measurement or out of his slide parts because of rust.Important of the parts or bolts to systematize. So that after you will perform overhauling. It will easily put back from where they are. After that we replace the camlobe into the head cylinder. But the stock camlobe are not long as we replace from the aftermarket engine. We replace that for the reason it will have a longer lobe than the stock. So that the distributor assembly can put after it.

My experienced while im studying

Most of the technicians don't have knowledge about automobile wiring. I studied Automotive Services National Competency II. And this only for 5 months and every topics are very important. I was willing to know about how to repair some parts of the engine. And now i know how to overhaul engines, how to grind the valves, and how to know if the the pistons are not good. Thanks to god i know all this.:)

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