Dwarves, Elves, Wizards, and Kings
Evan Cofsky
in nEAl STEpHEnSon’S novEl CryptonomiCon (EoS), Randy Water- house explains his classification system for the different types of people he meets. Dwarves are hard workers, steadily producing beautiful artifacts in the dark loneliness of their caves. They exert tremendous forces moving moun- tains and shaping earth, and are renowned for their craftsmanship. Elves are elegant, cultured, and spend their days creating new and beautiful magical things. They are so gifted they don’t even realize that other races view these things as otherworldly almost. The wizards are immensely powerful beings almost completely unlike all others, but unlike the elves, they do know about magic and its power and nature, and they wield it with supreme effect. But there is a fourth type of character that Waterhouse alludes to but does not mention specifically. The kings are the visionaries who know what must be done with all of these different characters.
An architect is a king of sorts. The architect must be familiar with all of these characters, and ensure that the architecture has roles for all of them. An archi- tecture designed only for one will attract only that one character to the project, and even with the best dwarves, or elves, or wizards, the team will be severely limited in its reach if it can only approach problems in one way.
?
??A good king will lead all types through a quest, and help them work together to complete it. Without the quest, there is no vision for the team, and it ulti- mately becomes a partisan mess. Without all the characters, the team can only solve one class of problem, and is stopped at the first barrier impassable to that solution.
The architect creates the quest with all the characters in mind. The architec- ture then becomes a guide for finding tasks for the different characters to per- form while learning about one another. When a project encounters difficulty, the team will already know how to approach solving it because the architecture gave them the opportunities to grow into a team.
Evan Cofsky is a software engineer, an amateur musician, and an avid cyclist. He studied both music and computer science in college, and continues to study them. Currently he is a senior software engineer with Virgin Charter as its resident Python expert, and works with an eclectic team of exceptionally bright and diverse people.