architecture astronomy

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architecture astronomy is the practice of analyzing problems, seeing patterns, and then generalizing to higher and higher level abstractions on top of those patterns to the point where the abstractions become so general, so vague, so detached from the original problems being analyzed, that they don't mean anything at all.

architecture astronauts are people that have a habit of practicing architecture astronomy, that is, the art of coming up with meaningless abstractions detached from real world problems.

"They tend to work for really big companies that can afford to have lots of unproductive people with really advanced degrees that don't contribute to the bottom line."[1]

Examples

Examples where you can often (more often than not) find examples of architecture astronomy:

• OOP
• RDF / HTTPRange-14
• web3
• blockchain

Articles

• Don't Let Architecture Astronauts Scare You
• The Duct Tape Programmer

See Also

• antipatterns
• 2018-07-20 Imaginary problems, the root of bad software
• 2018-08-11 The Hacks of Life: Solve Less General Problems
• https://twitter.com/Meaningness/status/1083805073950400514
  • "Pit-traps for rationalists: the seductive appeal of seemingly-universal frameworks that hardly ever work in practice.
    
    You can waste your entire career on one. You can waste an entire academic discipline and billions of dollars of research funding on one.
    
    https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2019/01/10/remembering-pierre-kabamba/" @Meaningness January 11, 2019
• They tend to also fall for the https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy
• https://twitter.com/paulca/status/1265407453753217024?s=20
  • "We have a squeaky bathroom door, so I thought we need to oil it.
    
    Then I realised there are a few other doors in the house that need oiled.
    
    Then I thought "wouldn't it be cool if I could pour oil down one pipe and oil all the doors at once"
    
    That's how software engineers think." @paulca May 26, 2020
• https://twitter.com/wtf_oauth/status/1477099506646802436
  • "If you can’t think of a better solution, add another layer of protocols." @wtf_oauth January 1, 2022
• https://thepointmag.com/examined-life/among-the-reality-entrepreneurs/
• https://grugbrain.dev/
• https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/mickens/files/thesaddestmoment.pdf