Architecture gem

After a couple of months of forced inactivity I can now pick up blogging again. What better way to start again by writing about two of my favorite subjects:

• Architecture and its practioners, and
• Government IT.

Since I studied public administration back in the days, I occasionally read the magazines that are typically read by former public administration students. I came across an issue of "Digitaal Bestuur" (digital administration), of which the theme is "Government and ICT". This issue had an article by a lead architect (!) from a government body, with the illustruous title "IT is difficult. IT within government is extra difficult". Fascinated by this title, I started reading and came across the following excerpt:
"It is getting more and more difficult to control the increasing complexity of IT. Computers have become 1000 to 1500 times more powerful in the past 15 years, as a result the systems have become 1000 to 1500 times more complex, and to make matters worse computers nowadays all communicate with each other through networks."
After I had read the above excerpt 5 times (I really wanted to make sure that I really read what I thought I was reading), I finally understood why governments are struggling so badly with IT and why architects are still having trouble to get accepted or even taken seriously by other IT and enterprise disciplines.