When faced with a problem, we use the tools we already have and know to deal with it, this is Bricolage. Engineering then (when seen as anything not-bricolage)

When faced with a problem, we use the tools we already have and know to deal with it, this is Bricolage. Engineering then (when seen as anything not-bricolage) is the creation (or modification) of new tools to solve a problem. Bricoler is improvisation, adaptation, and creativity with a constricted set of materials and methods. Engineering is changing the set itself. When you're on your back in the data-center in a tight spot trying to unscrew something but you don't happen to have a screwdriver, bricolage would be to use a knife-tip instead because that's just what you happen to have and can make do with. Engineering would be to crawl back out, head out to the store, find the proper screwdriver, buy it, come back, and crawl back down to unscrew it. In a software sense: most people solve their problem of the moment (extracting data from a bunch of files) using bash, cat, grep, sed, and some quick regex editing in their favorite editor, copy-pasting as they go, etc. They're going to write a specific program for just this one particular problem. (This is related to whether it's worth the time [https://xkcd.com/1205/ https://xkcd.com/1205/ ]). Or the stereotypical Grandma who sends a favorite picture by downloading it, inserting it into a Word document, printing that, scanning it, and then clicking on the "send via e-mail" button in the program, and looking up your e-mail address in her (physical) notebook.