I don't quite understand what you mean by programming with acad vs python. Are you talking about laying out floor plans or generating program requirements. Or is this a drafting question? Or is this a question about applications being used in an office?
trust me, i was once like you: go elsewhere. go into animation. go into 3d asset modeling or video game design. do not go into architecture.
Apr 14, 15 4:19 pm ·
·
Hold on. Programming when used in context of architecture is not the same as when the term 'programming' is used in software development.
Programming used in architecture means to define the spatial requirements of a project. Programming in computer software development means to write a series of instructions to tell a computer processor what to do. But it is more sophisticated than that as we got scripting and we got full turing programming languages.
What people use in programming in AutoCAD is more scripting than programming as they are used more narrowly as the objective of an architect/building designer is to create/design buildings and spaces to be constructed in the real tangible world. You aren't creating software applications and video games.
I'm actually in both realms.
You will seldomly use advance programming in architecture unless you plan to create software for the AEC industry. (AEC = Architecture, Engineering, Construction)
This is because if it was, they would have more required computer programming courses.
There is software architecture which is a completely different type of architecture from architecture in the case of buildings that this site is primarily about. Architects of buildings do not tend to use programming in their work because they are trained for visually designing. Programming involves WAY too much time in a very textual/cryptic environment that isn't visual in nature. Architecture is a non-computer based field even though we use computer software... the field is not about computers.
In my professional opinion, based only on the information provided so far about yourself, you maybe better off focusing in software application development, video game design, animation, etc. as null pointer suggests. One, you'll likely get paid better. If you are very good, you may very easily make more money after 2-5 years after graduation than an architect may make after 10-15 years after graduation. In addition, you don't need to seek an NAAB accredited degree in architecture and go through a bunch of sh-t just to get licensed as an architect. Currently, there is no licensure requirements in many of the fields you want to. Really, licensing just sucks as it financially eats you alive to get to that point and then every a--hole wants to sue you afterwards on projects because everyone likes to point to the 'architect' as the person at fault for anything that gets screwed up on a project.
Apr 14, 15 7:35 pm ·
·
People use autocad and similar programs to design buildings because it is visual. After all, architecture is a field where its history stems from drawing using pencil and paper. It is an art and science and programming is not intuitive to the visual thinking and design process.
Architects like artists uses their right side of the brain for their creative, visual thinking and that is often used in this field. Computer programmers uses their left side of the brain for that mathematical, logic, type thinking. I like video game development over many other kinds of software development because it allows me to use both sides for creative and logic. Architecture, does that too. We use the logic and math for the 'science' side of architecture as we do structural design and engineering of our structural and infrastructural systems and components of a building yet the visual stuff is artistically created.
I have to ask you to think about where your passion lies and think about where you want to align your career. I would say for the most part, the only area that most architects in the field of designing buildings will have a programmer for is website work. That's different from application or video game development work as it is a different kind of programming.
Many firms use coding and scripting on a daily basis, actual software dev to a lesser extent. I do quite a bit of it in my daily work, and I'm not making blobs and shit, just speeding up my workflow and giving myself more time to focus on actual design.
Analyzing architecture (structural analysis, area, volume, energy, wind analysis, urban planning analysis, deep data and post-occupancy analysis)
Producing software that produces architecture (building your own tools is something that true professionals do in nearly every industry)
SHoP, Zaha, Foster and Partners, SOM, Smith Gill, THEVERYMANY, The Living, Studio Gang, Shigeru Ban, Tadao Ando, Thornton Tomasetti, LMN, NBBJ, Gensler, Tryba, AEDS, etc...
The trick is not to get pigeonholed, to be a good pencil + trace designer in addition to knowing how to code.
Apr 14, 15 8:44 pm ·
·
Coding... not sure. Coding is kind of refers to serious programming for creating software. It's more scripting but semantics aside... okay.
It is just that it is not thee corporate firms that do house in-house software team is a minority. In addition, very seldom are architects also software programmers/developers.
It is because architects don't tends to be educated in programming as it isn't in the curriculum. Granted, anyone can learn anything by just doing it. I rarely see (quantitatively) people in the architecture field with substantive knowledge in software programming.
As an architecture student, I think I understand what the OP is asking….
In studio, programming and coding are usually associated with using grasshopper or other software like Catia? My classmates do this kind of design for their topic studio when they choose an instructor from AA, and at their final review, you will see animation, 3d-printed models, and sexy rendering like a scene from sci-fi movies.
Most of us (students) think programming is very “cool.” Programming has obviously become more and more popular in academia, and I have spent some time learning grasshopper on my own. However, in a job interview, I was told that the designs done by grasshopper were the things developers would never build. Knowing programming is not as helpful as I thought in the workplace. Or, maybe in the workplace, programming is used in a less creative/crazy way that we are not taught in school…
Apr 15, 15 1:52 am ·
·
Academia is kind of funny. In the architecture world where permits are to be issued, you need to prepare construction documents that complies with requirements of the building department and standard CAD/drafting symbols conventions that the builder is going to understand.
I understand the schools positioning students not necessarily to be architects because we got too many as it is.... but to other job positions.
Sure, but definitely not something that an "architect" will necessarily spend his/her time to on one of his/her architectural projects but something he may hire or contract out to be done.
So working in an allied / affiliate occupation-market is an opportunity.
Balkins, your left / right side argument is trash.
Coding is art. If you've ever done it for an extended period of time, you'd know that. The same part of my brain that puts together a sketch, or figures out how different building components interact while keeping beauty, proportion and feasibility in mind figures out the most efficient, beautiful and elegant way of stringing together functions to make a working program or script.
Also, what arch said. I can code, and make some pretty good drawings by hand as well. Architecture likes to keep myths around regarding specialists and single-dimensional kinds of intelligence. Be fucking good at everything and you'll be ok. But you probably won't work under others for long.
Balkins, what would you know about academia? OP, don't listen to this guy, he isn't an architect and didn't go to school to be one.
Null, I agree. The thing I see most is young professionals and students forgetting that coding is just a medium... the design and design intent have to come from the same place they did when we all drew on vellum, or used AutoCAD, or hell, papyrus, which is to say, the Architect.
Apr 15, 15 8:45 am ·
·
null pointer,
I've been programming since Commodore 64 was on the market. I mean the original Commodore 8 bit computers. I agree with you there is an art to it but coding itself generally requires a stronger use of logic. I programmed in machine language through tools like ML monitor. It is very mathematical and you have to do it all the time for just about nearly every single instruction to the processor.
Yes, you may use both parts of the brain. When you are programming, you'll be using alot more math and you have to use logic because a computer is a logic state-machine. That is because the computer itself is pure logic. I agree with your point that you will be using the right side of the brain (the artistic, creative side of the brain). Sure, we use both sides of the brain but how much. Many architects like alot of artist types are typically weak mathematically. Not that it is always the case. The point is what side of the brain is dominantly being used. When I am talking about coding... programming... I am talking about real programming and yes, you can be creative in the process. The programming itself tends to involve too much continuous use of logic and math for most of the architect/artist type people because they want to be very visual designing. One of the reasons they tend not to have a computer science degree and went to architecture is because computer science majors have generally higher mathematics requirements like 2nd and third year and 4th year college level math. Most architecture programs only require some basic college trig and basic level calculus mainly for your 'engineering' courses and other like courses. For the type of person who tends to choose architecture as a major, computer programming is not appealing to them because they have to program all the time and the environment of programming languages is very textual and lack much visual. I used to program in ML Monitor programming. That is where every single cpu instruction, you entered in, in hexadecimal for the operation code (opcode) and the operand. You had to make sure you use the correct hexadecimal code for the opcode in it's given addressing mode and you had to make sure the opcode is correctly ony byte or two bytes or whatever based on the addressing mode. It didn't have any GUI, icons, point and click operations. Yes, you can be creative but the nature of the programming environment and programming is something alot of the people who chooses architecture as a major finds unappealing and they don't work in that environment.
You could apply the concept in abstract of functions but you arrange functions for efficiency of logic processing but its different than spatial arranging. When we talk about beauty in programming, it is different than what a typical architect would understand by looking at the coding which would look like gibberish, cryptic non-sense to them. Just like sending coding examples to an architecture school for portfolio work is probably not going to communicate across.
archanonymous,
What do I know about academia? About decade and a half of it. How do you change the border color on the Commodore 64 in 6502 machine language? If you can't do that, than shut the f--- up.
Do you realize that I have looked at the curriculum of architecture program, the syllabus of the architecture major, their course description and no where have I ever seen them require any computer programming courses. The most you have a maybe a couple of weeks working with LISP or some sort of scripting language. You don't take introductory computer science as a requirement of an NAAB accredited degree unless you chosen to use it to fulfill a general ed requirement.
I have seen syllabuses of the courses, you really don't do any computer programming. When they talk about programming in architecture, it is different than programming in computer programming.
It isn't that you couldn't have taken the courses but they weren't a requirement.
If you say otherwise, show me an NAAB accredited architecture program that requires computer programming..
SHOW ME !!!!
Apr 15, 15 12:04 pm ·
·
TLDR,
There is a general difference in how think for programming as you would to create applications and such from the way you think as being an architect of buildings. Yes, you can transfer skills abstractly. Computer programming by nature generally involves more math, logic and technical thinking throughout. Especially in low-level programming like machine language. You really had to understand the computer's hardware. You also had to think your programming down to clock cycles and bytes. Timing of the raster interrupts is one of the crucial skills you need to master when working with computers like the Commodore, Super Nintendo, NES, TI-99/4A, etc.
You had to when you are manipulating the video modes of the video chip a lot.
When I was talking about architecture school, I seen the curriculum, what courses are required, the course description and syllabus for those courses. I was a Historic Preservation minor at UO which is a program in the School of Architecture and Allied Arts. So, yes, I have seen them. I even seen a number of the studio courses over the time frame as well.
Frankly UO is pretty typical and most NAAB architecture schools are generally similar. They can't be all that different from each other because of NAAB. They can't deviate much or they could lose accreditation.
There you have it. Do they typically involve alot of computer programming in the courses as a requirement... No.
ML and assembly are different monsters. You're comparing rocks to pencils; blunt archaic tools compared to elegant new utensils.
Being able to program a commodore 64 doesn't make you tech savvy, it makes you old.
Spend some time in an agile development team, coding in a high level, modern language (Python, Scala, Java), and you'll see what I am referring to.
Anyways, I wish I could post a few pictures of my notebooks from those days. The sketches aren't much different than those I do now.
Apr 15, 15 1:13 pm ·
·
Actually being able to program a Commodore in ML means you know more how to program than most people programming today.
I've programmed in Java, C/C++, including AREXX, and many others. Hiogh level languages are basically glorified BASIC and on the older machines, they were slow. Compiling them were slow and almost never as efficient memory and processing as machine language. Since that is what your code ends up having to be ultimately.
You have to be on crack to want to program on a modern processor in machine language. Every function your high level language functions, I was writing them in ML all the way back to TI-99/4A which by the way, its CPU was built around a Minicomputer.
You absolutely have to be tech savvy to use them. On those machines, you better understand how logic state machines work, timing intervals because if you were even once cpu clock cycle too much in a routine, you get graphic glitches on the screen. You had to understand computer hardware quite a bit to get the most out the computer. That was crucial when you are pushing the most out of a computer with only kilobytes of memory. There was stuff I was doing on Amiga that you didn't see on Windows until the mid 1990s.
With high level languages, your abstracted away from the inner workings of the computer.
On the PC side, I am working with Unity 5 and it uses C#. I also use Java or Python.
I can write a game server for a multiplayer C128 with GEOS and the server being written in Java or any language I so feel oblige to use running on the PC and the game client in GeoAssembler. You have to be tech savvy to work on over a dozen different computer platforms of 4 different decades from the 1970s to the 2010s.
If I was hired by a software company my salary would be anywhere from $70K to over $150K as a Project director of a software company or similar roles.
It would simply help to have more work done within 5 preceding years to being interviewed for a position.
Tech savvy means you need to be savvy about the technology.
However, we all have specializations even in this tech field.
Now, if you're an architect designing buildings, you're not going to be on such a team unless you qualify by having a computer science or related education.
I may assume you have gotten a bachelors in computer science or a masters degree after you got a B.Arch. What exactly is your job at an architectural firm?
It's becoming more prevalent - I think it's fair to say that while it may not be very common everywhere, coding as a tool set is becoming more common not only in architecture but everywhere else (heck in engineering it's part of the pre-licensing exam). As others have mentioned, it's more about adjusting existing software to fit your needs and a little code here and there can really clean things up.
Apr 15, 15 3:22 pm ·
·
3tk,
Agree. I agree that basic scripting and such to automate certain tasks or to perform calculation in a customized way is likely to become more prevalent up to a point.
I don't think however, architects (building architects) will become software developers as a general common practice. I see coding becoming more popular mostly out of the promotion of STEM, I suspect that trend shifts will move back and forth on the focus of coding in architecture. After all, if software is developed that does what architects need, why would an architect need to code? They're the customer. It's a rhetorical question, though.
I have my own responses to it but I'll hold it off here.
I suspect your skills won't find many takers in the work world. But best of luck to you.
Apr 15, 15 8:13 pm ·
·
gruen,
I would refine that statement a little better. I would agree that vincentaabc skills as much as we know that has been indicated is not necessarily going to get many takers in the work world of architecture.
These skills are not in high demand because most architecture firms are not software businesses.
My best guess is that they are learning skills that have something to do with parametric design. Most firms have no market for this. It isn't software, it's writing algorithms that make the designs.
Apr 16, 15 9:29 am ·
·
gruen,
Yep. scripts. Well the scripts are the programming code for the algorithms. It isn't just algorithms, though. They just often are not stand-alone applications in and of themselves.
Apr 16, 15 11:42 am ·
·
I would argue this can be potentially significant in the world of BIM. A BIM tool set can be thought as a suite of software applications that includes your CAD software used to model components and also to model your assembly of components (the building) but also a suite of tools of integrating a suite of informational tools integrated geometric information and other information through a database architecture.
Apr 16, 15 11:58 am ·
·
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Offices taking programming into practice/design development
Hi
I want to know , is there any architecture firm really using programming into their works?
It seems that normal offices only use autocad/archicad,
few of them will use python, GH, processing as their design tools.
Now I'm learning programming and algorithms stuffs, I really want to use them after I graduate from school.
Could someone shed me some enlightenments?
I don't quite understand what you mean by programming with acad vs python. Are you talking about laying out floor plans or generating program requirements. Or is this a drafting question? Or is this a question about applications being used in an office?
trust me, i was once like you: go elsewhere. go into animation. go into 3d asset modeling or video game design. do not go into architecture.
Hold on. Programming when used in context of architecture is not the same as when the term 'programming' is used in software development.
Programming used in architecture means to define the spatial requirements of a project. Programming in computer software development means to write a series of instructions to tell a computer processor what to do. But it is more sophisticated than that as we got scripting and we got full turing programming languages.
What people use in programming in AutoCAD is more scripting than programming as they are used more narrowly as the objective of an architect/building designer is to create/design buildings and spaces to be constructed in the real tangible world. You aren't creating software applications and video games.
I'm actually in both realms.
You will seldomly use advance programming in architecture unless you plan to create software for the AEC industry. (AEC = Architecture, Engineering, Construction)
This is because if it was, they would have more required computer programming courses.
There is software architecture which is a completely different type of architecture from architecture in the case of buildings that this site is primarily about. Architects of buildings do not tend to use programming in their work because they are trained for visually designing. Programming involves WAY too much time in a very textual/cryptic environment that isn't visual in nature. Architecture is a non-computer based field even though we use computer software... the field is not about computers.
In my professional opinion, based only on the information provided so far about yourself, you maybe better off focusing in software application development, video game design, animation, etc. as null pointer suggests. One, you'll likely get paid better. If you are very good, you may very easily make more money after 2-5 years after graduation than an architect may make after 10-15 years after graduation. In addition, you don't need to seek an NAAB accredited degree in architecture and go through a bunch of sh-t just to get licensed as an architect. Currently, there is no licensure requirements in many of the fields you want to. Really, licensing just sucks as it financially eats you alive to get to that point and then every a--hole wants to sue you afterwards on projects because everyone likes to point to the 'architect' as the person at fault for anything that gets screwed up on a project.
People use autocad and similar programs to design buildings because it is visual. After all, architecture is a field where its history stems from drawing using pencil and paper. It is an art and science and programming is not intuitive to the visual thinking and design process.
Architects like artists uses their right side of the brain for their creative, visual thinking and that is often used in this field. Computer programmers uses their left side of the brain for that mathematical, logic, type thinking. I like video game development over many other kinds of software development because it allows me to use both sides for creative and logic. Architecture, does that too. We use the logic and math for the 'science' side of architecture as we do structural design and engineering of our structural and infrastructural systems and components of a building yet the visual stuff is artistically created.
I have to ask you to think about where your passion lies and think about where you want to align your career. I would say for the most part, the only area that most architects in the field of designing buildings will have a programmer for is website work. That's different from application or video game development work as it is a different kind of programming.
Many firms use coding and scripting on a daily basis, actual software dev to a lesser extent. I do quite a bit of it in my daily work, and I'm not making blobs and shit, just speeding up my workflow and giving myself more time to focus on actual design.
Let me count the ways:
Automating daily tasks (copying + renaming files, automating digital output, easing workflow)
Producing architecture directly (form generation, facade generation, energy modeling, patterning, geometrical abstraction)
Analyzing architecture (structural analysis, area, volume, energy, wind analysis, urban planning analysis, deep data and post-occupancy analysis)
Producing software that produces architecture (building your own tools is something that true professionals do in nearly every industry)
SHoP, Zaha, Foster and Partners, SOM, Smith Gill, THEVERYMANY, The Living, Studio Gang, Shigeru Ban, Tadao Ando, Thornton Tomasetti, LMN, NBBJ, Gensler, Tryba, AEDS, etc...
The trick is not to get pigeonholed, to be a good pencil + trace designer in addition to knowing how to code.
Coding... not sure. Coding is kind of refers to serious programming for creating software. It's more scripting but semantics aside... okay.
It is just that it is not thee corporate firms that do house in-house software team is a minority. In addition, very seldom are architects also software programmers/developers.
It is because architects don't tends to be educated in programming as it isn't in the curriculum. Granted, anyone can learn anything by just doing it. I rarely see (quantitatively) people in the architecture field with substantive knowledge in software programming.
As an architecture student, I think I understand what the OP is asking….
In studio, programming and coding are usually associated with using grasshopper or other software like Catia? My classmates do this kind of design for their topic studio when they choose an instructor from AA, and at their final review, you will see animation, 3d-printed models, and sexy rendering like a scene from sci-fi movies.
Most of us (students) think programming is very “cool.” Programming has obviously become more and more popular in academia, and I have spent some time learning grasshopper on my own. However, in a job interview, I was told that the designs done by grasshopper were the things developers would never build. Knowing programming is not as helpful as I thought in the workplace. Or, maybe in the workplace, programming is used in a less creative/crazy way that we are not taught in school…
Academia is kind of funny. In the architecture world where permits are to be issued, you need to prepare construction documents that complies with requirements of the building department and standard CAD/drafting symbols conventions that the builder is going to understand.
I understand the schools positioning students not necessarily to be architects because we got too many as it is.... but to other job positions.
Sure, but definitely not something that an "architect" will necessarily spend his/her time to on one of his/her architectural projects but something he may hire or contract out to be done.
So working in an allied / affiliate occupation-market is an opportunity.
Balkins, your left / right side argument is trash.
Coding is art. If you've ever done it for an extended period of time, you'd know that. The same part of my brain that puts together a sketch, or figures out how different building components interact while keeping beauty, proportion and feasibility in mind figures out the most efficient, beautiful and elegant way of stringing together functions to make a working program or script.
Also, what arch said. I can code, and make some pretty good drawings by hand as well. Architecture likes to keep myths around regarding specialists and single-dimensional kinds of intelligence. Be fucking good at everything and you'll be ok. But you probably won't work under others for long.
Balkins, what would you know about academia? OP, don't listen to this guy, he isn't an architect and didn't go to school to be one.
Null, I agree. The thing I see most is young professionals and students forgetting that coding is just a medium... the design and design intent have to come from the same place they did when we all drew on vellum, or used AutoCAD, or hell, papyrus, which is to say, the Architect.
null pointer,
I've been programming since Commodore 64 was on the market. I mean the original Commodore 8 bit computers. I agree with you there is an art to it but coding itself generally requires a stronger use of logic. I programmed in machine language through tools like ML monitor. It is very mathematical and you have to do it all the time for just about nearly every single instruction to the processor.
Yes, you may use both parts of the brain. When you are programming, you'll be using alot more math and you have to use logic because a computer is a logic state-machine. That is because the computer itself is pure logic. I agree with your point that you will be using the right side of the brain (the artistic, creative side of the brain). Sure, we use both sides of the brain but how much. Many architects like alot of artist types are typically weak mathematically. Not that it is always the case. The point is what side of the brain is dominantly being used. When I am talking about coding... programming... I am talking about real programming and yes, you can be creative in the process. The programming itself tends to involve too much continuous use of logic and math for most of the architect/artist type people because they want to be very visual designing. One of the reasons they tend not to have a computer science degree and went to architecture is because computer science majors have generally higher mathematics requirements like 2nd and third year and 4th year college level math. Most architecture programs only require some basic college trig and basic level calculus mainly for your 'engineering' courses and other like courses. For the type of person who tends to choose architecture as a major, computer programming is not appealing to them because they have to program all the time and the environment of programming languages is very textual and lack much visual. I used to program in ML Monitor programming. That is where every single cpu instruction, you entered in, in hexadecimal for the operation code (opcode) and the operand. You had to make sure you use the correct hexadecimal code for the opcode in it's given addressing mode and you had to make sure the opcode is correctly ony byte or two bytes or whatever based on the addressing mode. It didn't have any GUI, icons, point and click operations. Yes, you can be creative but the nature of the programming environment and programming is something alot of the people who chooses architecture as a major finds unappealing and they don't work in that environment.
You could apply the concept in abstract of functions but you arrange functions for efficiency of logic processing but its different than spatial arranging. When we talk about beauty in programming, it is different than what a typical architect would understand by looking at the coding which would look like gibberish, cryptic non-sense to them. Just like sending coding examples to an architecture school for portfolio work is probably not going to communicate across.
archanonymous,
What do I know about academia? About decade and a half of it. How do you change the border color on the Commodore 64 in 6502 machine language? If you can't do that, than shut the f--- up.
Do you realize that I have looked at the curriculum of architecture program, the syllabus of the architecture major, their course description and no where have I ever seen them require any computer programming courses. The most you have a maybe a couple of weeks working with LISP or some sort of scripting language. You don't take introductory computer science as a requirement of an NAAB accredited degree unless you chosen to use it to fulfill a general ed requirement.
I have seen syllabuses of the courses, you really don't do any computer programming. When they talk about programming in architecture, it is different than programming in computer programming.
It isn't that you couldn't have taken the courses but they weren't a requirement.
If you say otherwise, show me an NAAB accredited architecture program that requires computer programming..
SHOW ME !!!!
TLDR,
There is a general difference in how think for programming as you would to create applications and such from the way you think as being an architect of buildings. Yes, you can transfer skills abstractly. Computer programming by nature generally involves more math, logic and technical thinking throughout. Especially in low-level programming like machine language. You really had to understand the computer's hardware. You also had to think your programming down to clock cycles and bytes. Timing of the raster interrupts is one of the crucial skills you need to master when working with computers like the Commodore, Super Nintendo, NES, TI-99/4A, etc.
You had to when you are manipulating the video modes of the video chip a lot.
When I was talking about architecture school, I seen the curriculum, what courses are required, the course description and syllabus for those courses. I was a Historic Preservation minor at UO which is a program in the School of Architecture and Allied Arts. So, yes, I have seen them. I even seen a number of the studio courses over the time frame as well.
Frankly UO is pretty typical and most NAAB architecture schools are generally similar. They can't be all that different from each other because of NAAB. They can't deviate much or they could lose accreditation.
There you have it. Do they typically involve alot of computer programming in the courses as a requirement... No.
ML and assembly are different monsters. You're comparing rocks to pencils; blunt archaic tools compared to elegant new utensils.
Being able to program a commodore 64 doesn't make you tech savvy, it makes you old.
Spend some time in an agile development team, coding in a high level, modern language (Python, Scala, Java), and you'll see what I am referring to.
Anyways, I wish I could post a few pictures of my notebooks from those days. The sketches aren't much different than those I do now.
Actually being able to program a Commodore in ML means you know more how to program than most people programming today.
I've programmed in Java, C/C++, including AREXX, and many others. Hiogh level languages are basically glorified BASIC and on the older machines, they were slow. Compiling them were slow and almost never as efficient memory and processing as machine language. Since that is what your code ends up having to be ultimately.
You have to be on crack to want to program on a modern processor in machine language. Every function your high level language functions, I was writing them in ML all the way back to TI-99/4A which by the way, its CPU was built around a Minicomputer.
You absolutely have to be tech savvy to use them. On those machines, you better understand how logic state machines work, timing intervals because if you were even once cpu clock cycle too much in a routine, you get graphic glitches on the screen. You had to understand computer hardware quite a bit to get the most out the computer. That was crucial when you are pushing the most out of a computer with only kilobytes of memory. There was stuff I was doing on Amiga that you didn't see on Windows until the mid 1990s.
With high level languages, your abstracted away from the inner workings of the computer.
On the PC side, I am working with Unity 5 and it uses C#. I also use Java or Python.
I can write a game server for a multiplayer C128 with GEOS and the server being written in Java or any language I so feel oblige to use running on the PC and the game client in GeoAssembler. You have to be tech savvy to work on over a dozen different computer platforms of 4 different decades from the 1970s to the 2010s.
If I was hired by a software company my salary would be anywhere from $70K to over $150K as a Project director of a software company or similar roles.
It would simply help to have more work done within 5 preceding years to being interviewed for a position.
Tech savvy means you need to be savvy about the technology.
However, we all have specializations even in this tech field.
Now, if you're an architect designing buildings, you're not going to be on such a team unless you qualify by having a computer science or related education.
I may assume you have gotten a bachelors in computer science or a masters degree after you got a B.Arch. What exactly is your job at an architectural firm?
It's becoming more prevalent - I think it's fair to say that while it may not be very common everywhere, coding as a tool set is becoming more common not only in architecture but everywhere else (heck in engineering it's part of the pre-licensing exam). As others have mentioned, it's more about adjusting existing software to fit your needs and a little code here and there can really clean things up.
3tk,
Agree. I agree that basic scripting and such to automate certain tasks or to perform calculation in a customized way is likely to become more prevalent up to a point.
I don't think however, architects (building architects) will become software developers as a general common practice. I see coding becoming more popular mostly out of the promotion of STEM, I suspect that trend shifts will move back and forth on the focus of coding in architecture. After all, if software is developed that does what architects need, why would an architect need to code? They're the customer. It's a rhetorical question, though.
I have my own responses to it but I'll hold it off here.
gruen,
I would refine that statement a little better. I would agree that vincentaabc skills as much as we know that has been indicated is not necessarily going to get many takers in the work world of architecture.
These skills are not in high demand because most architecture firms are not software businesses.
My best guess is that they are learning skills that have something to do with parametric design. Most firms have no market for this. It isn't software, it's writing algorithms that make the designs.
gruen,
Yep. scripts. Well the scripts are the programming code for the algorithms. It isn't just algorithms, though. They just often are not stand-alone applications in and of themselves.
I would argue this can be potentially significant in the world of BIM. A BIM tool set can be thought as a suite of software applications that includes your CAD software used to model components and also to model your assembly of components (the building) but also a suite of tools of integrating a suite of informational tools integrated geometric information and other information through a database architecture.
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