An interesting piece on architecture

From the first time I used it, I though www.deklarit.com was a superb product.  Originally I had thought tools like this were all hype because I had a bad experience using this really lame 4GL called Visual DataFlex (and if I paid everyone that's ever heard of it a dollar, I'd still be able to eat) and I thought ORM and similar technologies were just that.  Upon running through the tutorials that come with Dekalrit, I again realized the value of uninformed opinions - $0.00.  This thing really kicked a33 and while it had a little bit of a learning curve, the time savings you can realize is pretty amazing.  Plus, it takes the boring out of writing really boring stuff like Data Access layers that seem to never go away no matter how hard you try.  The fact they  have support for SqlCe is just one more example of how kick a33 this thing is. 

So anyway, one of the features it has is that it will normalize tables for you.  Yes, where was Andres when I was busting my a33 in Database theory - I could have aced the course with 1/100th of the work.  This and a lot of the other features really sparked my interest in software architecture because I sat there looking at what the stuff created in was like “How in the h3ll do they do this?”  Until then I used to kind of shy away from getting too into architecture b/c I thought the area was ripe with really smart people but they always kept quiet - it seemed like the only people you heard were big loudmouths that always bragged about how they could recompile their kernel but always seemed to need to borrow my homework when assignments were due.  However that's a pretty stupid reason to stay away from something, assuming that my incorrect premise was correct in the first place. 

So I always dig reading stuff that Andres posts, because he's a pretty interesting cat and, well, his product design proves irrefutably that his ideas are those of a well informed dude.  He started this  thread and I really wish he'd elaborate more on it, but I definitely see his point.  I'd be equally interested in seeing what the advocates claim are the virtues b/c I didn't see anything in the rebuttals that makes much sense (other than the ones Andres posted).