architecting

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Fri, Mar 19, 2004 at 09:25:23PM -0500, James A. Landau wrote:
> In a message dated   Wed, 10 Mar 2004 14:12:16 -0500,   Jesse Sheidlower
> <jester at PANIX.COM> writes
>
> >  On Wed, Mar 10, 2004 at 12:51:41PM -0500, Wendalyn Nichols wrote:
> >  > Anyone else run across this verb? Here's a quote from the description of
> a
> >  > job posted by an investment firm:
> >  >
> >  > "Members of the Strategic Growth department are responsible for
> >  > architecting and executing strategies to identify and recruit world-class
> >  > talent in a variety of both technical and non-technical fields..."
> >
> >  As others have pointed out, this is originally in the software
> >  industry as a fancy synonym for 'design'; the OED draft entry
> >  has examples to the mid-1970s. We now have increasing number of
> >  examples in a broader scope, but still in the general sense
> >  'to design' or 'to plan'.
>
> Amdahl, G. M., Blaauw, G. A., and Brooks, F. P. "Architecture of the IBM
> System/360," _IBM Journal of Research and Development_, 8, No. 2, 87-101 (April
> 1964)

This citation is already in the OED. So is an earlier one:

1962 F. BROOKS in W. Buchholz in _Planning Computer Syst._
ii. 5 Computer architecture, like other architecture, is the
art of determining the needs of the user..and then designing
to meet those needs as effectively as possible.

> Note to Jesse: you said "in the software industry".  The 1964 Amdahl cite was
> actually "in the hardware industry".

So noted.

However, the 1964 Amdahl cite goes on to specify, "The term
_architecture_ is used here to describe the attributes of a
system as seen by the programmer, i.e., the conceptual
structure and functional behavior, as distinct from the
organization of the data flow and controls, the logical
design, and the physical implementation."

This suggests to me pretty clearly that the cite is indeed
concerned with the software side of things. (Despite the
evidence of this particular paper, though, I would agree
that _architecture_ n. is often used of hardware issues.)

Best,

Jesse
OED