Ask HN: What makes a good solution architect?
I was recently tasked to architect and develop a solution, with limited time and human resources. I was only given 3 months although I speculate the project will need minimum 6 months. I never believe a good quality software can be deployed in such short period of time. I argued to no avail. I have 3 fairly experienced developers at my disposal.<p>Despite this, I proceeded designing the architecture. We need to develop an app server, a mobile client and a desktop client. I alone handled the architecture design, research, development, and deployment. We survived, unpleasantly. I believe I have then suffer with some level of depression.<p>As retrospective, I:<p>* failed at properly documenting the architecture<p>* failed at properly setting up the dev env so that the other developers can run their instances of the solution locally<p>* dwelled too much time to achieve the above point<p>* dwelled too much time to automate things, especially at trying to automate dev, staging, production setup<p>* failed to look at minor details (I need help with this, I&#x27;m a big picture guy, never the details)<p>* should have sticked to SDK provided by third party, instead I chose to go with something totally new to me just because the SDK is only available with COM Interop and I do not have any Windows machine with me.<p>I believe I have the knowledge, and not afraid of looking for the knowledge and the &quot;proper&quot; ways of things should be done. And maybe trying too hard.<p>Back to the topic, what makes a good solution architect, how can I improve myself?