The basic architecture concepts I wish I knew when I was getting started as a web developer

Programmers seem to have forgotten the real purpose of software, that is to solve a real-world problem.

50 years ago, in 1968, the Working Conference on Software Engineering was held, sponsored by the NATO Science Committee. People started to notice software was becoming a fundamental part of society at that time. However, it was also becoming too hard to understand. After that conference, programming started to become a whole industry. It started to move away from the control of business people.

Maybe it's just my experience, but Object-Oriented Programming seems like a default, most common paradigm of software engineering. The one typically thought to students, featured in online material and for some reason, spontaneously applied even by people that didn't intend it.

This past summer, I gave a lecture at a web conference and afterward got into a fascinating conversation with a young digital design student. It was fun to compare where we were in our careers. I had fifteen years of experience designing for web clients, she had one year, and yet some how, we were in the same situation: we enjoyed the work, but were utterly confused and overwhelmed by the rapidly increasing complexity of it all. What the hell happened? (That’s a rhetorical question, of course.)

Je suis régulièrement appelé à l’aide par des entrepreneurs ou des startups naissantes qui ont une idée géniale mais qui sont inexplicablement bloqués ou qui n’arrivent pas à se lancer. Après les avoir écouté, ma première réaction est toujours : « Vous n’avez pas d’idée. Vous croyez juste avoir une idée. Et de toutes façons, une idée ne vaut rien. » Sympa le Ploum !