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I am seriously curious, what is the difference between e.g. an mechanical engineer designing a new machine and a person designing a new software system that is

by foepys 8y ago

I am seriously curious, what is the difference between e.g. an mechanical engineer designing a new machine and a person designing a new software system that is intended to be maintained for at least 10 years by various teams? Is there some sort of bonus just because it's physical vs virtual?

blihp 8y ago
I think it's the rigor of the field. The general expectation is that a mechanical, or any other type of engineer, will bring to the table some minimum set of skills and knowledge that other engineers in the same field possess. This is not true in computing since so many people entered the field from so many vectors. Not to mention there's still a hell of a lot of snake oil being peddled because there's so much money in the field of computing. For example: one can't be certain that someone with a Computer Science degree even knows how to program or has any other specific knowledge or skills. Or that someone supposedly with X years of experience with Y understands Y at all vs. just repeating tasks learned by rote. Or that someone who went to a Z bootcamp can actually do anything useful with/in Z. Maybe someday we'll get there, but it's still a long ways off.
ThenAsNow 8y ago
> Is there some sort of bonus just because it's physical vs virtual? No, it's not about a "bonus" because it's physical. erikpukinskis [1] and blihp [2] captured essential reasons for the differences in their comments, and I did so in my response to yc-krain [3]. I mean this in no way condescendingly, but if the bulk of one's technical experience is all in software with no deep exposure to the engineering lifecycle in the physical realm, it could be hard to grok the underlying theme of rigor that these comments get at. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18801168 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18801168 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18801296 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18801296 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18801396 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18801396

by foepys 8y ago

blihp 8y ago

I think it's the rigor of the field. The general expectation is that a mechanical, or any other type of engineer, will bring to the table some minimum set of skills and knowledge that other engineers in the same field possess. This is not true in computing since so many people entered the field from so many vectors. Not to mention there's still a hell of a lot of snake oil being peddled because there's so much money in the field of computing. For example: one can't be certain that someone with a Computer Science degree even knows how to program or has any other specific knowledge or skills. Or that someone supposedly with X years of experience with Y understands Y at all vs. just repeating tasks learned by rote. Or that someone who went to a Z bootcamp can actually do anything useful with/in Z. Maybe someday we'll get there, but it's still a long ways off.

ThenAsNow 8y ago

> Is there some sort of bonus just because it's physical vs virtual? No, it's not about a "bonus" because it's physical. erikpukinskis [1] and blihp [2] captured essential reasons for the differences in their comments, and I did so in my response to yc-krain [3]. I mean this in no way condescendingly, but if the bulk of one's technical experience is all in software with no deep exposure to the engineering lifecycle in the physical realm, it could be hard to grok the underlying theme of rigor that these comments get at. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18801168 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18801168 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18801296 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18801296 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18801396 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18801396