6 ms·

You misspelled "good bean-counting". Good engineering requires you to cover for everything you can. Case in point: car seatbelts and airbags. Most people don't

You misspelled "good bean-counting". Good engineering requires you to cover for everything you can. Case in point: car seatbelts and airbags. Most people don't crash, right? But you aren't seeing the car manufacturers remove seatbelts and airbags.

to3m 9y ago
When everything is made from beans, the bean supply must be kept in mind.
sbov 9y ago
Counter point: many cars aren't made to accommodate people as tall as a professional basketball player. Should I call them all bad (or at least not good) engineering?
- throwaway47861 9y ago
  Counter-counter-point: I am above 180cm (far from 200+ where many basketball players are) and many taxis aren't tuned for me and I bang my head on the ceiling so yes, I definitely call the manufacturers of those cars bad. Statistical averages are a back-patting technique between managers, let's face that reality, shall we? They very rarely have the customer's interests in mind.
  - RussianCow 9y ago
    You have to draw a line somewhere, though. Every engineering decision has a cost, whether time/money, opportunity cost, or design tradeoffs, so it's not practical to cater to every single user you have.
    - throwaway47861 9y ago
      There are many people above 180cm. Again, let's face it -- it's bean counting, some medium-level product manager wants a raise by saving expenses. That's all it is, that's all it ever was, and it ain't ever gonna change while there are people on these positions.
che_shirecat 9y ago
what a ludicrous analogy. engineering is an applied science, not a purely theoretical one where you can remove the human impact of your decisions from the equation. comments like this are a prime example of why engineers need to take more liberal arts classes
- dang 9y ago
  I agree with you about liberal arts and have the college transcripts to prove it. Unfortunately, your HN comments have been frequently uncivil and/or unsubstantive. Would you please not post like that? It's just what we're trying to avoid here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - throwaway47861 9y ago
    Would you be so kind to point out how would a liberal art knowledge would help people like me understanding the issues better? I think I understand where my opponents stand, but I disagree with a part of them.
    - dang 9y ago
      I don't know how the point applies in this case, or if it does at all. It's pretty hard to draw specific lines like that.
- throwaway47861 9y ago
  It was a slightly exaggerated example. Nothing can be infinitely optimized of course, but the corner cutting in today's tech culture is a bit too much for my taste.
Brockenstein 9y ago
Consumers by in large know driving is dangerous and safety features are something car manufacturers advertise to consumers. Not to mention over the last 30-40 years drivers have come to expect these sorts of features in cars because accidents happens and those features increase survivability, by a lot. The same sort of consumer expectation doesn't exist for no-javascript. Major browsers default it enabled. The web has developed to be seriously built on top of javascript for the last 15 years. Consumers have expectations for how the web should work in 2017 (for better or worse) and no-javascript isn't anywhere on the radar. Consumer expect cars to have airbags and seatbelts, consumers expect websites to behave as they always have and that means javascript.
- throwaway47861 9y ago
  JS is necessary. But what do we do about the extensive tracking and extremely unoptimal requests, for which we already have numerous articles out there? If there's no soft solution, disabling JS altogether is a good fish net for a lot of people -- yes the percent is close to a rounding error but the absolute amount can go to 1 million or more.
postozoan 9y ago
You also don't see car manufacturers change their designs so that they will accommodate drivers who've decided to remove their steering wheel, nor do car manufacturers design their cars for some possible future world without gasoline.
- throwaway47861 9y ago
  I've had this one coming. Serves me right to believe contrived example won't be nitpicked. :D
jholman 9y ago
Good engineering requires good bean-counting. Figuring out what you can do with infinite resources is not good engineering (except perhaps when funded by DARPA). As any good civil engineer knows... “Any idiot can build a bridge that stands, but it takes an engineer to build a bridge that barely stands.” The essential characteristic of engineering is making mindful, appropriate tradeoffs between various costs and benefits, including features, risks, externalities, financial costs, etc.
- throwaway47861 9y ago
  As I mentioned in another comment, it was a bit exaggerated example to illustrate a point, not to make the people nitpick it. The corner-cutting in the current tech culture is a bit too much for my taste.

to3m 9y ago

When everything is made from beans, the bean supply must be kept in mind.

sbov 9y ago

Counter point: many cars aren't made to accommodate people as tall as a professional basketball player. Should I call them all bad (or at least not good) engineering?

throwaway47861 9y ago
Counter-counter-point: I am above 180cm (far from 200+ where many basketball players are) and many taxis aren't tuned for me and I bang my head on the ceiling so yes, I definitely call the manufacturers of those cars bad. Statistical averages are a back-patting technique between managers, let's face that reality, shall we? They very rarely have the customer's interests in mind.
- RussianCow 9y ago
  You have to draw a line somewhere, though. Every engineering decision has a cost, whether time/money, opportunity cost, or design tradeoffs, so it's not practical to cater to every single user you have.
  - throwaway47861 9y ago
    There are many people above 180cm. Again, let's face it -- it's bean counting, some medium-level product manager wants a raise by saving expenses. That's all it is, that's all it ever was, and it ain't ever gonna change while there are people on these positions.

che_shirecat 9y ago

what a ludicrous analogy. engineering is an applied science, not a purely theoretical one where you can remove the human impact of your decisions from the equation. comments like this are a prime example of why engineers need to take more liberal arts classes

dang 9y ago
I agree with you about liberal arts and have the college transcripts to prove it. Unfortunately, your HN comments have been frequently uncivil and/or unsubstantive. Would you please not post like that? It's just what we're trying to avoid here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- throwaway47861 9y ago
  Would you be so kind to point out how would a liberal art knowledge would help people like me understanding the issues better? I think I understand where my opponents stand, but I disagree with a part of them.
  - dang 9y ago
    I don't know how the point applies in this case, or if it does at all. It's pretty hard to draw specific lines like that.
throwaway47861 9y ago
It was a slightly exaggerated example. Nothing can be infinitely optimized of course, but the corner cutting in today's tech culture is a bit too much for my taste.

Brockenstein 9y ago

Consumers by in large know driving is dangerous and safety features are something car manufacturers advertise to consumers. Not to mention over the last 30-40 years drivers have come to expect these sorts of features in cars because accidents happens and those features increase survivability, by a lot. The same sort of consumer expectation doesn't exist for no-javascript. Major browsers default it enabled. The web has developed to be seriously built on top of javascript for the last 15 years. Consumers have expectations for how the web should work in 2017 (for better or worse) and no-javascript isn't anywhere on the radar. Consumer expect cars to have airbags and seatbelts, consumers expect websites to behave as they always have and that means javascript.

throwaway47861 9y ago
JS is necessary. But what do we do about the extensive tracking and extremely unoptimal requests, for which we already have numerous articles out there? If there's no soft solution, disabling JS altogether is a good fish net for a lot of people -- yes the percent is close to a rounding error but the absolute amount can go to 1 million or more.

postozoan 9y ago

You also don't see car manufacturers change their designs so that they will accommodate drivers who've decided to remove their steering wheel, nor do car manufacturers design their cars for some possible future world without gasoline.

throwaway47861 9y ago
I've had this one coming. Serves me right to believe contrived example won't be nitpicked. :D

jholman 9y ago

Good engineering requires good bean-counting. Figuring out what you can do with infinite resources is not good engineering (except perhaps when funded by DARPA). As any good civil engineer knows... “Any idiot can build a bridge that stands, but it takes an engineer to build a bridge that barely stands.” The essential characteristic of engineering is making mindful, appropriate tradeoffs between various costs and benefits, including features, risks, externalities, financial costs, etc.

throwaway47861 9y ago
As I mentioned in another comment, it was a bit exaggerated example to illustrate a point, not to make the people nitpick it. The corner-cutting in the current tech culture is a bit too much for my taste.