Fashion oriented architecture, fashion oriented design and fashion oriented programming (FOA, FOD, FOP or FOx in general terms) are terms related with using products, API’s and frameworks according to marketing and trending decisions instead of technically founded ones.

FOx, although not a recognized standard is a de-facto policy used in technical management when technical know-how is inappropriate and limited usually due to lack of knowledge, lack of experience or lack of interest. Sometimes darker reasons apply.

Telling apart FOx decision-making from technically founded decision-making is difficult and requires an expert gifted with 5 attributes:

• Well founded know-how about the given area of expertise
• Years of real hands-on experience on those areas and technologies
• A vast amount of common sense
• Lack of biased interests with a given licensed-product provider
• Enough self-confidence and economic security to be able to tell the hard truth to FOx oriented technical management.
• Personal interest on developing good software.