97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know

Chapter 49. Janus the Architect

Dave Bartlett is an enthusiastic software professional with more than 25 years' experience as a programmer, developer, architect, manager, consultant, and instructor. He currently works for clients through Commotion Technologies, Inc., a private consulting firm, and lectures at Penn State University's Graduate Engineering School in Great Valley, Pennsylvania. His main work efforts today are with the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, helping to design and build web, portal, and composite applications for use within the Federal Reserve System and the United States Treasury.

—David Bartlett

IN THE ROMAN WORLD, Janus was the god of beginnings and endings, doors and passageways. Janus is usually depicted with two heads facing in different directions, a symbol you may have seen on coins or in the movies. Janus represents transitions and changes in life from past to future, young to old, marriage, births, and coming of age.

For any architect, software or structural, Janus's ability to see forward and backward or past to future is a highly regarded skill. An architect strives to merge realities with vision; past success with future direction; business and management expectations with development constraints. Creating these bridges is a major part of being an architect. Often an architect may feel she is trying to span chasms while bringing a project to completion ...