John A Zachman on Architecture

John A Zachman, Pioneer of enterprise architecture and  originator of the "Zachman Framework". 

A quote in the preface of his book: 

"If you get really honest and search all of history, seven thousand years of known history of humankind, to find out how humanity has learned to cope with two things, complexity and change, there is one game in town: ARCHITECTURE.

If it (whatever it is) gets so complex you can’t remember everything all at one time, you have to write it down …  ARCHITECTURE. Then if you want to change it (whatever it is), you go to what you wrote down … ARCHITECTURE.

How do you think they build hundred-story buildings or Boeing 747’s, or IBM supercomputers … or even simple things like a one-bedroom house or a Piper Cub or the PC on your desk?

Somebody had to write it down … at excruciating levels of detail … ARCHITECTURE. Now, if you want to change any of those things (with minimum time, disruption, and cost), how do you change them? You go to what you wrote down … ARCHITECTURE. The key to complexity and change is ARCHITECTURE."

I'm just thinking about it...