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As a web developer with 20 years experience I would argue that one web SPA project is more similar to the next than comparing two bridges and developers still c

As a web developer with 20 years experience I would argue that one web SPA project is more similar to the next than comparing two bridges and developers still can’t figure it out. One difference is that a license is required to practice civil engineering. Most web developers, on the other hand, require large tools to do theirs jobs for them and recoil in irrational fear and disgust when standard DOM methods are used. I still have people argue with me that the DOM is slow even though all the evidence and browser vendors claim updates to the DOM is simply switching a bit in memory. In other words many web developers have utterly no idea how their platform works. Another difference is that many developers cannot write. Everything about a bridge is planned in extreme detail before work on the ground ever starts. This level of planning is absent in software. Documentation is also largely absent. In most cases everything is an ad hoc mess. In any other industry this would be a cause of numerous lawsuits. Another difference is that construction is treated as a business project with a dedicated project manager and project budget. Most business software, on the other hand, is treated as an operation. If you cannot discern the difference between a project (temporary) and an operation (living) your software will never be released as a product to a specified level of quality by a specific date.

scruple 7y ago
> One difference is that a license is required to practice civil engineering. I've often wondered about this. Who exactly has to be licensed? Are there management layers in civil engineering firms where the license isn't required? I think my point is pretty easy to follow. I'd love for all of us to be licensed to practice software engineering, but I don't hold any hope that it would fix all of the other compounding problems that our industry has as it relates to product/project management and management-born issues. For example, would being licensed stop executives at a triple-A video game company from prematurely announcing games / release dates, or accepting pre-orders for games that won't be finished on time, and forcing all of the people under then to scramble and crunch and do things that would generally be considered anti-thetical to whatever being licensed in software engineering could mean?
- austincheney 7y ago
  My uncle is a senior partner in a major civil engineering firm and my wife’s best friend is a civil engineer. Everybody who practices civil engineering in Texas must be licensed to be employable. Maybe you could intern without a license, but you wouldn’t be involved with any project related work.
  - corebit 7y ago
    You've just changed the word without actually defining anything. What constitutes practicing? What stops one licensed engineer approve a design nominally created by thousands of unlicensed lower engineers?
    - austincheney 7y ago
      > You've just changed the word without actually defining anything. What constitutes practicing? Work for compensation.
    - pbz 7y ago
      The licensed engineer puts their stamp on that work? If anything happens the licensed engineer is on the hook.
    - ntsplnkv2 7y ago
      Ultimately accountability. There's a reason we have hard standards for being a PE or an MD. If you just let anyone do it you risk many problems. Most software simply isn't like this. The valley loves talking about disruption and all and how world changing everything they do is, but the fact of the matter is social media isn't killing anyone like a failed bridge would or a person who isn't qualified as a doctor. Most of the money made in the valley is off of advertising or data. Who cares if the product is shitty? people don't die. rich people make a little less money.
      - kqr 7y ago
        That said, social media and targeted advertising is used to cause far greater (and more subtle) damage, like polarising opinion and influencing elections. Not to mention common patterns of social media usage (which we have developed and incentivised) are proven to strongly correlate with lower quality of life. (I vaguely remember a causal link too, but I won't say that for sure without a reference.) A bridge hosts what? 400 people at worst (i.e. when there äre passenger trains on it.) Social media easily hosts 400 thousand or million people. The single bridge-collapsing event is very dramatic and visceral, but digital platforms allow us to cause damage and death by a thousand cuts.
jrs235 7y ago
>Most business software, on the other hand, is treated as an operation. If you cannot discern the difference between a project (temporary) and an operation (living) your software will never be released as a product to a specified level of quality by a specific date. I never really thought about that. There is so much truth to it and why so much Saas is a never ending feature factory! I assume Basecamp thinks of their Saas as a project and that's how they are able to escape the never ending Big Ball of Mud software craziness.
jayd16 7y ago
>Most web developers, on the other hand, require large tools to do theirs jobs for them and recoil in irrational fear and disgust when standard DOM methods are used I would recoil in disgust if I saw a civil engineer building a suspension bridge by hand as well.
- moron4hire 7y ago
  Most software projects are nowhere near the scope of a suspension bridge, and the DOM is certainly a lot higher level than "building by hand". Your analogy is terrible.
  - jayd16 7y ago
    Hyperbolic perhaps but the idea that civil engineers don't or shouldn't use tools, tooling, or abstraction is bizarre.
    - moron4hire 7y ago
      And that is my point. The DOM is a tool.
- austincheney 7y ago
  I am not sure what you mean. When are you not writing code by hand or are you reliant on somebody to write it for you?
  - cyberbanjo 7y ago
    Always when aided by a compiler or interpreter.
- ethanwillis 7y ago
  Abstraction can be good. But this reliance on abstraction that does nothing but obscure problems is a weakness of modern software development. And now we're left with no one who can solve them.
Syntoniclese 7y ago
I agree with you in principal. When I worked in web development many of my projects were clearly defined and similar. However when I got into more creative development I found myself faced with unique problems to which the solution was unknown. The development process in this case is less like an implementation and more a exploration of the problem space. This process is more like sculpting or writing a book or solving a puzzle. As you sculpt the next steps reveal themselves. As you write a story the plot emerges. In order to solve a puzzle box you probe the box. Solving the unknown in bridge building is working through sets of equations and to solve for variables. It involves doing math. Solving the unknown in software involves a similar working through. "Doing the math" for code involves executing code. It's faster and easier. Ignoring this is like restricting your bridge planning by avoiding CAD or doing the math by hand. Yes, once a solution is mapped out the ideal would be a full rewrite. The benefit of software is that it can be modified and finalized directly like baking a sculpt or revising a manuscript. If a button allowed the working schematic of your bridge to magically materialize, and changing the schematic affected the real world bridge instantly with negligible implementation cost then civil engineering would evolve in the direction of software development. It's not the other way around.
Dahoon 7y ago
>One difference is that a license is required to practice civil engineering The world would be a better place if developers (or the company they work for) were as much on the hook for bugs in software as en engineer is for a bug in a bridge. How programming can still be the wild west in 2020 is beyond me. I've read some good thoughts about this topic by Poul-Henning Kamp (Varnish, FreeBSD) but can't seem to find it at the moment.
- Glawen 7y ago
  It is the case for safety critical software (aircraft, factory, automotive, train etc...). Development of these software is very long and costly
PopeDotNinja 7y ago
Also, people spend many millions on bridges. People want a clone of pick-a-software-something for less than 5 figures.

scruple 7y ago

> One difference is that a license is required to practice civil engineering. I've often wondered about this. Who exactly has to be licensed? Are there management layers in civil engineering firms where the license isn't required? I think my point is pretty easy to follow. I'd love for all of us to be licensed to practice software engineering, but I don't hold any hope that it would fix all of the other compounding problems that our industry has as it relates to product/project management and management-born issues. For example, would being licensed stop executives at a triple-A video game company from prematurely announcing games / release dates, or accepting pre-orders for games that won't be finished on time, and forcing all of the people under then to scramble and crunch and do things that would generally be considered anti-thetical to whatever being licensed in software engineering could mean?

austincheney 7y ago
My uncle is a senior partner in a major civil engineering firm and my wife’s best friend is a civil engineer. Everybody who practices civil engineering in Texas must be licensed to be employable. Maybe you could intern without a license, but you wouldn’t be involved with any project related work.
- corebit 7y ago
  You've just changed the word without actually defining anything. What constitutes practicing? What stops one licensed engineer approve a design nominally created by thousands of unlicensed lower engineers?
  - austincheney 7y ago
    > You've just changed the word without actually defining anything. What constitutes practicing? Work for compensation.
  - pbz 7y ago
    The licensed engineer puts their stamp on that work? If anything happens the licensed engineer is on the hook.
  - ntsplnkv2 7y ago
    Ultimately accountability. There's a reason we have hard standards for being a PE or an MD. If you just let anyone do it you risk many problems. Most software simply isn't like this. The valley loves talking about disruption and all and how world changing everything they do is, but the fact of the matter is social media isn't killing anyone like a failed bridge would or a person who isn't qualified as a doctor. Most of the money made in the valley is off of advertising or data. Who cares if the product is shitty? people don't die. rich people make a little less money.
    - kqr 7y ago
      That said, social media and targeted advertising is used to cause far greater (and more subtle) damage, like polarising opinion and influencing elections. Not to mention common patterns of social media usage (which we have developed and incentivised) are proven to strongly correlate with lower quality of life. (I vaguely remember a causal link too, but I won't say that for sure without a reference.) A bridge hosts what? 400 people at worst (i.e. when there äre passenger trains on it.) Social media easily hosts 400 thousand or million people. The single bridge-collapsing event is very dramatic and visceral, but digital platforms allow us to cause damage and death by a thousand cuts.

jrs235 7y ago

>Most business software, on the other hand, is treated as an operation. If you cannot discern the difference between a project (temporary) and an operation (living) your software will never be released as a product to a specified level of quality by a specific date. I never really thought about that. There is so much truth to it and why so much Saas is a never ending feature factory! I assume Basecamp thinks of their Saas as a project and that's how they are able to escape the never ending Big Ball of Mud software craziness.

jayd16 7y ago

>Most web developers, on the other hand, require large tools to do theirs jobs for them and recoil in irrational fear and disgust when standard DOM methods are used I would recoil in disgust if I saw a civil engineer building a suspension bridge by hand as well.

moron4hire 7y ago
Most software projects are nowhere near the scope of a suspension bridge, and the DOM is certainly a lot higher level than "building by hand". Your analogy is terrible.
- jayd16 7y ago
  Hyperbolic perhaps but the idea that civil engineers don't or shouldn't use tools, tooling, or abstraction is bizarre.
  - moron4hire 7y ago
    And that is my point. The DOM is a tool.
austincheney 7y ago
I am not sure what you mean. When are you not writing code by hand or are you reliant on somebody to write it for you?
- cyberbanjo 7y ago
  Always when aided by a compiler or interpreter.
ethanwillis 7y ago
Abstraction can be good. But this reliance on abstraction that does nothing but obscure problems is a weakness of modern software development. And now we're left with no one who can solve them.

Syntoniclese 7y ago

I agree with you in principal. When I worked in web development many of my projects were clearly defined and similar. However when I got into more creative development I found myself faced with unique problems to which the solution was unknown. The development process in this case is less like an implementation and more a exploration of the problem space. This process is more like sculpting or writing a book or solving a puzzle. As you sculpt the next steps reveal themselves. As you write a story the plot emerges. In order to solve a puzzle box you probe the box. Solving the unknown in bridge building is working through sets of equations and to solve for variables. It involves doing math. Solving the unknown in software involves a similar working through. "Doing the math" for code involves executing code. It's faster and easier. Ignoring this is like restricting your bridge planning by avoiding CAD or doing the math by hand. Yes, once a solution is mapped out the ideal would be a full rewrite. The benefit of software is that it can be modified and finalized directly like baking a sculpt or revising a manuscript. If a button allowed the working schematic of your bridge to magically materialize, and changing the schematic affected the real world bridge instantly with negligible implementation cost then civil engineering would evolve in the direction of software development. It's not the other way around.

Dahoon 7y ago

>One difference is that a license is required to practice civil engineering The world would be a better place if developers (or the company they work for) were as much on the hook for bugs in software as en engineer is for a bug in a bridge. How programming can still be the wild west in 2020 is beyond me. I've read some good thoughts about this topic by Poul-Henning Kamp (Varnish, FreeBSD) but can't seem to find it at the moment.

Glawen 7y ago
It is the case for safety critical software (aircraft, factory, automotive, train etc...). Development of these software is very long and costly

PopeDotNinja 7y ago

Also, people spend many millions on bridges. People want a clone of pick-a-software-something for less than 5 figures.