Why do I hate documenting Application Architectures?

As a general rule, I dislike writing documents – MS Word seems to be able to put me to sleep every time. But when it comes to Application Architecture documents, it’s even worse than usual.

Why? I’m pretty sure that it’s got to do with generalisation – I love thinking about application architectures, and I love building them, but when it comes to writing about them, the fact that everything needs to be so general really puts me to sleep.

To think about an architecture I like to look right through it, and try to come up with a picture of a complete implementation of it. The problem with documenting the architecture I think stems from the fact that I have to “switch off” the part of my brain that automatically looks for a concrete example in order to validate the architecture I’m writing about. By forcing myself not to think about that part of it, I can concentrate on documenting the architecture itself. But that leaves a large percentage of brainpower that is now doing nothing. The only other time I’m not thinking about 5 different things at once is when I am sleeping, so my brain tries to make me fall asleep.

So if my boss is reading this - THAT’S why I was snoring this afternoon!!!