3 ms·

I did not know electrical engineers did mostly design work until my junior year. A professor was flabbergasted when I asked about learning more about soldering

by peteey 7y ago

I did not know electrical engineers did mostly design work until my junior year. A professor was flabbergasted when I asked about learning more about soldering techniques, as if I would end up working on an assembly line. My major was a lucky whim.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
Engineering culture fetishizes engineering and tends to look down on implementation details. Why would you care about spec'ing a standard thread, that's the toolmaker's problem. Why would you care about leaving enough space around components to assemble the device, just outsource assembly to some 3rd world sweatshop full of kids with tiny fingers. And then everyone wonders why new engineers spend their first few jobs trying to design crap that's hyper optimized for what it does but can't actually be built within any reasonable set of constraints. CS isn't quite so bad but you definitely get some profs with that same optimization worshiping attitude.
- WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago
  Internalizing profits and externalizing losses... Use a crappy JS system that kills mobile devices but lets you deliver the widget in 3 days... and just ask users to upgrade often.
C1sc0cat 7y ago
But to be a good EE designer designer you would need to know the mechanics of soldering and production engineering and presumably all the stats behind it as well. You cant always rely on the technician remembering how ohms law works for you
robomartin 7y ago
Maybe this is the case today. When I went to school EE’s built things, they didn’t just design them. In fact, you would be looked down upon if you could not assemble your own design properly. Note I said “assemble” not “solder”. At the time (‘80’s) wire-wrapping was a viable prototyping option. Once digital circuit speeds and complexity increased the option evaporated. I must have wire-wrapped thousands of feet of circuits, including a 6502-based multiprocessor robot controller.

by peteey 7y ago

dsfyu404ed 7y ago

Engineering culture fetishizes engineering and tends to look down on implementation details. Why would you care about spec'ing a standard thread, that's the toolmaker's problem. Why would you care about leaving enough space around components to assemble the device, just outsource assembly to some 3rd world sweatshop full of kids with tiny fingers. And then everyone wonders why new engineers spend their first few jobs trying to design crap that's hyper optimized for what it does but can't actually be built within any reasonable set of constraints. CS isn't quite so bad but you definitely get some profs with that same optimization worshiping attitude.

WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago
Internalizing profits and externalizing losses... Use a crappy JS system that kills mobile devices but lets you deliver the widget in 3 days... and just ask users to upgrade often.

C1sc0cat 7y ago

But to be a good EE designer designer you would need to know the mechanics of soldering and production engineering and presumably all the stats behind it as well. You cant always rely on the technician remembering how ohms law works for you

robomartin 7y ago

Maybe this is the case today. When I went to school EE’s built things, they didn’t just design them. In fact, you would be looked down upon if you could not assemble your own design properly. Note I said “assemble” not “solder”. At the time (‘80’s) wire-wrapping was a viable prototyping option. Once digital circuit speeds and complexity increased the option evaporated. I must have wire-wrapped thousands of feet of circuits, including a 6502-based multiprocessor robot controller.