‘J2EE Architect’ is a loaded word, and I should know I’m a Sun Certified Enterprise Architect (SCEA). I meet up with a lot of architects through the hiring process and reviewing consultant RFPs and quite a few of them scare me. When asked about implementation details I get responses like:
I’ve only worked at companies with really high end J2EE developers who could implement my design, so they didn’t really need mentoring.
SOA is really a paradigm shift for developers and takes some getting used to.
I develop really complete object models with UML class and sequence diagrams that map out exactly what is to be done and I use common J2EE patterns.
Look at my enterprise diagram here it really explains how to lay out your SOA architecture with our reference ESB implementation.
For the view layer I find XML and XSLT are very effective because you can separate the content from the presentation.
I like Michael Feathers rule that any code without tests is legacy code. My rule for architects is any architect who can’t/won’t code their solution is a legacy developer.