However, I still am left with the feeling that you have reached this conclusion by means of more than three decades of practicing both the right thing and the wrong thing as well (we all make mistakes, etc).

So basically, how did you realized that "Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable" if not precisely by trying to plan, and then observing it's uselessness?

I could almost bet that you now assume that the architecture will be wrong in a week's time and yet you always find a way to actually make it resilient to this and make it work, otherwise I would have to wonder how did you ever accomplished something if indeed 100% of your architectures was wrong in a week's time.

I.e., this is your experience in your craft. Flowing like water, Bruce Lee would say.

Now, the point I did not get though, is, what exactly are the differences between being a craft or being war?

If it's a craft I kind of assume, like you, that I'll never be able to design the perfect architecture, but only the best architecture that I could have produced at the time. And just strive to get better every time.

If it's war, then it basically means that at any time anything can explode, but then I would be filled with despair all the time I guess. Maybe not. Is this what you refer to? if it's war you have to design assuming it will break very shortly and then work around that? or "make do with what I have" as they say?

Again, very interesting points and I appreciate the discussion since this has been haunting me almost my entire career.

Edit: By the way, I hope you don't me if I quote you. Those are some nifty points right there.

A team that just hacks and does YAGNI by accident, or a team that does YAGNI but doesn't plan, they often have a choice of how to build the feature right now. With a little bit of planning, we can see past the first few meters and choose the first step to be in the direction of the bigger plan. Without planning, the first step might be in the wrong direction. The hard part for my teams is to plan, and then still only implement the first step. They're getting better =)

Its war because if you're doing something worthwhile, there's someone else trying to get your customers. I'm not suggesting your stuff should break. The opposite. Combine YAGNI with TDD and push working, tested features to production ASAP.

I had a suspicion that despite the black-and-white way you have expressed your opinion elsewhere, particularly in your exchange with eridius, there probably was actually some common ground here. I don't believe it's possible to avoid the failure modes eridius describes without thinking ahead to some extent; this passage suggests you actually agree.

I can't speak to your experience with your team, but I can say that I've spent a lot of time fixing or working around other people's poorly-considered design decisions. In many cases I understand there wasn't time to do it better; the product had to be shipped. But in some cases I think a little reflection would have shown a better way which wouldn't have taken any longer to implement.