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In software development, an architecture astronaut is a term for an individual who is focused on abstract ideas underpinning software design.[1] It is often used pejoratively.[2] The concept was popularized by developer Joel Spolsky his 2001 essay, "Don't let architecture astronauts scare you",[3][4] in which he criticized their tendency to see patterns in everything as absurd.[5] Programmer John Carmack has defined architecture astronauts as "a class of programmers or designers who only want to talk about things from the highest level."[2]
An abstract approach to software architecture can help build an understanding of the bigger picture, and the ability to communicate ideas to a broad group of stakeholders is often useful.[1] However, the architecture astronaut can take this approach to an extreme,[1] with little regard for logistical details and how their ideas would be executed.[2] According to Spolsky,
"When you go too far up, abstraction-wise, you run out of oxygen. Sometimes, smart thinkers just don't know when to stop, and they create these absurd, all-encompassing, high-level pictures of the universe that are all good and fine, but don't actually mean anything at all."[5]
In 2021, John Carmack, then CTO of Oculus consulting, described the metaverse as "a honeypot trap for architecture astronauts".[2] He lamented that Mark Zuckerberg's focus on building the metaverse could result in thousands of people spending years building things that would not end up being useful.[2]
References
- ^ a b c Woods, Eoin (2014). "Return of the Pragmatic Architect". IEEE Software. 31 (3): 10–13 – via EBSCOHost.
- ^ a b c d e Sinclair, Brendan (October 29, 2021). "Oculus' John Carmack skeptical about efforts to build the metaverse". GamesIndustry.biz. Retrieved 2024-03-05.
- ^ Bell, Alex E. (January 2009). "From the Front Lines: Ground Control to Architect Tom". Communications of the ACM. 52 (1): 21–22 – via EBSCOHost.
- ^ Stevens, Luke (2014). "A Somewhat Sensationalized History of HTML5". The Truth About HTML5. Berkeley: Apress. doi:10.1007/978-1-4302-6416-3_1. ISBN 978-1-4302-6416-3.
- ^ a b Spolsky, Joel (2004). "Don't Let Architecture Astronauts Scare You". Joel on Software. Berkeley: Apress. pp. 111–114. doi:10.1007/978-1-4302-0753-5_14. ISBN 978-1-4302-0753-5.