>I believe software can be planned to near-perfection by one or more architects. If you establish a design, the implementation can be verified, at least to the level of detail defined in the plans.
^^^
I'm sorry to say that this presumption right here is responsible for an awful lot of the terrible code I've seen.
Doing architecture isn't like solving an equation.
Architectural decisions are nearly always trade offs and the worst trade offs are made by people who believe that there is a Perfect Answer to problems that have no one one right answer. They have a tendency to get religious about approaches, technologies, languages, etc. (sometimes even text editors and where to put the braces).
Perhaps near-perfection was a poor choice of language. My point was that a software architect could design a complete solution without writing any code, and be very confident that it will work as required when implemented. In many organisations waterfall is too expensive/slow, and often an early iteration is more important than a robust implementation. But the waterfall methodology is still the only option for mission-critical applications. And these systems are best designed by experienced software architects before any code gets written.
I'm not saying that the architect's involvement should end after design. They are critical to communicating the design to anyone involved with the implementation phase.
^^^
I'm sorry to say that this presumption right here is responsible for an awful lot of the terrible code I've seen.
Doing architecture isn't like solving an equation.
Architectural decisions are nearly always trade offs and the worst trade offs are made by people who believe that there is a Perfect Answer to problems that have no one one right answer. They have a tendency to get religious about approaches, technologies, languages, etc. (sometimes even text editors and where to put the braces).