Very respectfully disagree -- many architects are also programmers/developers/engineers, but very few programmers/developers/engineers are or become architects.

To me, it's not so much a transformation or an evolution as a gradual revelation or realization of what one has been all along.

While I agree with many of the statements and examples in this article, architects are simply very different people. They haven't become that way; they've always been that way.

And while some of the intentionally transformative traits are useful, e.g. learning and applying patterns, reading broadly, analyzing code, and managing both up and down, I believe the fundamental difference is really much more simple than that.

Architects ask two basic questions and have always done so, even before they realized that's what they were doing and before they learned that these questions have fancy names and a long history of like-minded people being obsessesed with them.

Question 1: What is this? What is it really? At its core, in its essence, if we stripped away all the fluff (name/caption/title, color, size, context, etc), what makes this itself and not something else? This is ontology.

Question 2: Where should this go? In a structure (existing or envisioned), where should this be placed in order to produce the most benefit ("utilitatis", utility) and delight ("venustatis", delight or beauty) for the longest time ("firmitatis", durability)? This is taxonomy.