3 ms·

> You're not solving hard engineering problems What, in your mind, makes an engineering problem hard? I've certainly had to dig out CS algorithms and 'clever'

> You're not solving hard engineering problems What, in your mind, makes an engineering problem hard? I've certainly had to dig out CS algorithms and 'clever' applications thereof to reach desirable performance out of some custom widgets in front end projects. I don't know if that can considered hard – hindsight tends to make everything seem easy – but it is certainly beyond pasting in a library like you describe. I have to agree that you can create some very useful projects that do not deviate from a framework/library's documentation, or what have you. But we don't really know what the parent in particular is working on.

EpicEng 10y ago
>What, in your mind, makes an engineering problem hard? A problem which requires a high degree of creativity, intelligence, and technical ability, likely one which hasn't been solved before. You're right; it's a bit difficult (at least for me) to define, but we know it when we see it. Sending men to the moon was a hard engineering problem; implementing the UI for gmail was not. You speak of using 'CS algorithms' in your UI's. I assume you're talking about things like optimizing a search of a list by using a better data structure or sorting algorithm. C'mon. You didn't solve these problems, other people did, you just did a little research, and this is basic stuff most of us can pull off fairly easily. The vast majority of web development is not engineering. It is in fact just pasting together code other people wrote to solve a particular, relatively trivial problem.
- jhall1468 10y ago
  Lol, you think you are spending 40 hours a week at the forefront of problem solving new challenges? Let's be real, for a moment. By your definition of a hard engineering problem, very few people are spending their time doing it. Virtually no one is doing it every day. Why pick on front end dev specifically? You think the average backend dev building installing flask is facing a lot of unsolved problems? You think the average game dev is rendering 3D models in some new, magical way?
  - EpicEng 10y ago
    So, I didn't want to say what I do because I didn't want to make it personal, but yes, I do. I work in biotech and desogn control systems for an immunofluorescent imaging device and associated computer vision algorithms used to identify circulating tumor cells in the blood stream. We just released a prognostic test for colon cancer which is actually relatively groundbreaking as it provides a new treatment path for people who previously had no options. So yes, I feel that I am. I have been a part of small engineering teams delivering brand new technologies to the market my entire career. And you're right, very few people, especially in software, are solving hard problems. I wasn't picking on anyone, I was responding to a comment.
    - randomdata 10y ago
      Stringing together some OpenCV functions isn't hard engineering.
    - jhall1468 10y ago
      So you are using a fluorescent fiberscope to identify tumors. So you are implementing some vision library. How is that a hard engineering problem? > So yes, I feel that I am. That's the crux of the issue. You are doing exactly what you find so distasteful about web development: implementing existing algorithms to solve a specific problem. Unless of course, your team is actually inventing new vision algorithms that somehow changed the field, which I'd love to see the paper on.
- dunkelheit 10y ago
  You are comparing the sexiest problems of one field with the ordinary problems of another. This is just unfair comparison. By saying that "we know it when we see it", you are acknowledging that this is a value judgment (nothing wrong with that, just don't present it as an absolute truth). Also, by your definition, sending humans to the moon is not a hard engineering problem. It has been done before; it involves pasting together some relatively well-understood components like rocket engines and guidance systems.
- Chris2048 10y ago
  > You didn't solve these problems, other people did that's a high bar for engineering. Integrating known solutions into a situation is engineers. Mechanical engineers don't discover the laws of motion themselves.
  - EpicEng 10y ago
    So you're right about that, and I thought the same right after I posted. There is of course a scale here. Taking academic scientific research and turning it into something real is a far cry for changing e.g. an array to a hash table to improve lookup speed.
- randomdata 10y ago
  > I assume you're talking about things like optimizing a search of a list by using a better data structure or sorting algorithm. You assume wrong. They were not straight up textbook problems, but I agree that I used a wealth of existing knowledge to apply it to my specific problems. That's what engineering is. > You didn't solve these problems, other people did Naturally. If you are working on finding novel discoveries the world has never seen before, you would be appropriately labeled a scientist working on science. Hence, also why we consider the algorithms I mentioned before to come from computer science, not software engineering.
- nightski 10y ago
  I think you have confused engineering for research. Engineering is not anything like you have described. I went to school for aerospace engineering.

EpicEng 10y ago

>What, in your mind, makes an engineering problem hard? A problem which requires a high degree of creativity, intelligence, and technical ability, likely one which hasn't been solved before. You're right; it's a bit difficult (at least for me) to define, but we know it when we see it. Sending men to the moon was a hard engineering problem; implementing the UI for gmail was not. You speak of using 'CS algorithms' in your UI's. I assume you're talking about things like optimizing a search of a list by using a better data structure or sorting algorithm. C'mon. You didn't solve these problems, other people did, you just did a little research, and this is basic stuff most of us can pull off fairly easily. The vast majority of web development is not engineering. It is in fact just pasting together code other people wrote to solve a particular, relatively trivial problem.

jhall1468 10y ago
Lol, you think you are spending 40 hours a week at the forefront of problem solving new challenges? Let's be real, for a moment. By your definition of a hard engineering problem, very few people are spending their time doing it. Virtually no one is doing it every day. Why pick on front end dev specifically? You think the average backend dev building installing flask is facing a lot of unsolved problems? You think the average game dev is rendering 3D models in some new, magical way?
- EpicEng 10y ago
  So, I didn't want to say what I do because I didn't want to make it personal, but yes, I do. I work in biotech and desogn control systems for an immunofluorescent imaging device and associated computer vision algorithms used to identify circulating tumor cells in the blood stream. We just released a prognostic test for colon cancer which is actually relatively groundbreaking as it provides a new treatment path for people who previously had no options. So yes, I feel that I am. I have been a part of small engineering teams delivering brand new technologies to the market my entire career. And you're right, very few people, especially in software, are solving hard problems. I wasn't picking on anyone, I was responding to a comment.
  - randomdata 10y ago
    Stringing together some OpenCV functions isn't hard engineering.
  - jhall1468 10y ago
    So you are using a fluorescent fiberscope to identify tumors. So you are implementing some vision library. How is that a hard engineering problem? > So yes, I feel that I am. That's the crux of the issue. You are doing exactly what you find so distasteful about web development: implementing existing algorithms to solve a specific problem. Unless of course, your team is actually inventing new vision algorithms that somehow changed the field, which I'd love to see the paper on.
dunkelheit 10y ago
You are comparing the sexiest problems of one field with the ordinary problems of another. This is just unfair comparison. By saying that "we know it when we see it", you are acknowledging that this is a value judgment (nothing wrong with that, just don't present it as an absolute truth). Also, by your definition, sending humans to the moon is not a hard engineering problem. It has been done before; it involves pasting together some relatively well-understood components like rocket engines and guidance systems.
Chris2048 10y ago
> You didn't solve these problems, other people did that's a high bar for engineering. Integrating known solutions into a situation is engineers. Mechanical engineers don't discover the laws of motion themselves.
- EpicEng 10y ago
  So you're right about that, and I thought the same right after I posted. There is of course a scale here. Taking academic scientific research and turning it into something real is a far cry for changing e.g. an array to a hash table to improve lookup speed.
randomdata 10y ago
> I assume you're talking about things like optimizing a search of a list by using a better data structure or sorting algorithm. You assume wrong. They were not straight up textbook problems, but I agree that I used a wealth of existing knowledge to apply it to my specific problems. That's what engineering is. > You didn't solve these problems, other people did Naturally. If you are working on finding novel discoveries the world has never seen before, you would be appropriately labeled a scientist working on science. Hence, also why we consider the algorithms I mentioned before to come from computer science, not software engineering.
nightski 10y ago
I think you have confused engineering for research. Engineering is not anything like you have described. I went to school for aerospace engineering.