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> Additionally, the tech industry, in my opinion, innovates at a significantly faster pace than the licensed engineering disciplines. Perhaps these are correlat

by gspetr 10y ago

> Additionally, the tech industry, in my opinion, innovates at a significantly faster pace than the licensed engineering disciplines. Perhaps these are correlated in some way. I think you're right. Regulation stifles innovation. Even in a narrow sense, thinking software alone, everyone knows the saying "Standard library is where modules go to die", meaning that there are stricter requirements to make it to the standard library in the first place and stricter still to update them once they've made it in.

VLM 10y ago
Its not just regulation. We're not getting rid of Eulers critical column load equation because of neophilia whereas in software if its over two years old it must be scrapped as obsolete and no longer trendy. Engineering is very predictable because of the enormous amount of procedure. It takes precisely X labor hours for an engineer to analyze a house roof blueprint and specify a scalable system of installing anything from 1 panel to covering the entire roof with solar panels that will survive local wind and snow loads with essentially 100% survivability yet also being minimal cost. Its just incredibly predictive. On the other hand a lot of software development is throw something brand new at the wall see if it sticks, if it does, great, scale till it doesn't, if it does not then its not your fault because its new and nobody can predict nothing in software development. Will it take 3 months or 4 months to write that app, who knows, unpredictable. No large body of "human life trustworthy" predictable process has developed... yet... for software except in the simplest cases. It doesn't help that due to moore's transistor law times were changing fast such that what would have required a miracle and some scientific breakthrus in the 70s is now the structural engineering equivalent of some carpenter building a doghouse, its so small that overbuilding doesn't matter and theres no human lives at stake so hiring a structural engineer for hours to calculate the rafter geometry and size for a doghouse is a waste of time and money, leading ignorant people to think solid engineering principles are in opposition to profit for ALL software development, which is a bit of a mistake. And leading to a desire for software engineering to exist, although there is no academic teachable scalable hyper-predictable mathematically provable process for software development like there is for circuit analysis or structural beam design or chemical process kinetics for scaling so desiring "truely engineering like software dev" is like wishing for magic to be true, sure would be convenient if it existed, but since it doesn't, the people who claim to be engineers are kinda like people who claim to be alchemists, best hold on to your hat. With a side dish of "engineer" being a modern term of nobility only granted by certain authorities and extremely jealously legally guarded. And a side dish of hiring people who know nothing about computers or engineering think engineer sounds impressive, so its required on resumes, just like "rock star" or "guru" or "ninja".

by gspetr 10y ago

VLM 10y ago

Its not just regulation. We're not getting rid of Eulers critical column load equation because of neophilia whereas in software if its over two years old it must be scrapped as obsolete and no longer trendy. Engineering is very predictable because of the enormous amount of procedure. It takes precisely X labor hours for an engineer to analyze a house roof blueprint and specify a scalable system of installing anything from 1 panel to covering the entire roof with solar panels that will survive local wind and snow loads with essentially 100% survivability yet also being minimal cost. Its just incredibly predictive. On the other hand a lot of software development is throw something brand new at the wall see if it sticks, if it does, great, scale till it doesn't, if it does not then its not your fault because its new and nobody can predict nothing in software development. Will it take 3 months or 4 months to write that app, who knows, unpredictable. No large body of "human life trustworthy" predictable process has developed... yet... for software except in the simplest cases. It doesn't help that due to moore's transistor law times were changing fast such that what would have required a miracle and some scientific breakthrus in the 70s is now the structural engineering equivalent of some carpenter building a doghouse, its so small that overbuilding doesn't matter and theres no human lives at stake so hiring a structural engineer for hours to calculate the rafter geometry and size for a doghouse is a waste of time and money, leading ignorant people to think solid engineering principles are in opposition to profit for ALL software development, which is a bit of a mistake. And leading to a desire for software engineering to exist, although there is no academic teachable scalable hyper-predictable mathematically provable process for software development like there is for circuit analysis or structural beam design or chemical process kinetics for scaling so desiring "truely engineering like software dev" is like wishing for magic to be true, sure would be convenient if it existed, but since it doesn't, the people who claim to be engineers are kinda like people who claim to be alchemists, best hold on to your hat. With a side dish of "engineer" being a modern term of nobility only granted by certain authorities and extremely jealously legally guarded. And a side dish of hiring people who know nothing about computers or engineering think engineer sounds impressive, so its required on resumes, just like "rock star" or "guru" or "ninja".