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95% of the time, good software creation is really just construction, not engineering. There are great paradigms and solutions to the majority of problems. There
by andrewstuart2 10y ago
95% of the time, good software creation is really just construction, not engineering. There are great paradigms and solutions to the majority of problems. There's room for design and UX, but you shouldn't need to custom engineer the walls out of carbon fiber or some aerospace composites unless you're launching the house to Mars. The engineering aspect really only comes into play when no components meet your needs.
The construction metaphor is full of great wisdom to be gleaned as software developers. And I'm not just saying that in hopes I didn't waste all those hours watching History Channel documentaries. :-D
- taneq 10y agoWhen you're talking about civil/mechanical engineering, good engineering is 'just construction' too. Your job is to take well known, tried-and-tested techniques and combine them in a safe and reliable way to produce a design which meets all of your requirements and can be built for your target price. Engineering isn't really a place for more than very limited creativity. That place is R&D.
- threeseed 10y agoWould strongly disagree with this. For me a well designed house is actually, you know, about the design. And whilst the construction is important due to standards it is largely irrelevant. The analogy to software is apt. Well designed, well architected software is so important. Anyone can write syntactically proper code. Far harder to design a system that has just the right amount of extensibility, performance, elegance etc to meet the requirements without going over the top.
- jburwell 10y agoAsk owners of beautifully designed Frank Lloyd Wright houses how happy they are with the leaky roofs that plague them. Wright didn't understand construction which lead to many practical flaws when people tried to actually build his designs.