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Ray Ozzie To Step Down From His Role At Microsoft
denobug writes "Ray Ozzie, Chief Software Architect at Microsoft, is stepping down. He is to remain with Microsoft until he retires, focusing his efforts 'in the broader area of entertainment where Microsoft has many ongoing investments,' based on a memo from Steve Ballmer. Also according to Steve's memo, the role of CSA was unique and it will not be filled."
You can't "avoid useless complexity" when you're dealing with "orientations" (whatever the fuck those actually are) and "design patterns" (deficiencies in the programming language you're using).
You don't need "software architects". You just need a small number of developers who can actually code, and that are using a sufficiently-expressive language to not need "design patterns".
I know, I know. You'll claim it's difficult to find developers like that. In reality, it's not. You just have to offer them a good salary. Sure, you could buy 450 shitty Indian developers with the same salary as three or four good developers, but those three or four developers will be tens of thousands of times more productive than your shitty Indian developers.
Anyone who has held the title of Chief Software Architect at Microsoft must also carry shame for the deplorable, innovation-free time at Microsoft over the past 10 years. For all their "brightest of the brightest" employees, the bean counters and the sainted Redmond campus, Microsoft has originated exactly zero new ideas in the past decade. Every single "idea" they came up with was narrowly derivative of some existing project. Microsoft is devoid of innovation.
No fucks were made available that day.