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The more I learn about historical technology, the more I see that the complexity of logic built on top of old processes seems to be about equivalent to the comp
by CyberRabbi 6y ago
The more I learn about historical technology, the more I see that the complexity of logic built on top of old processes seems to be about equivalent to the complexity of contemporary software systems.
The only thing that seems to be really changing is the technological substrate underneath. It leads me to wonder if manufacturing ability and materials engineering are really what’s driving higher order improvements in technology, not “algorithms” so to speak. Electrical and mechanical engineers of olde otherwise seem to be no less capable of designing complex systems than software engineers.
- rafiki6 6y agoIt's a very interesting positive feedback cycle. Application identified. Some manufacturing process gets developed to automate. Scale up production. Challenges in scaling process are discovered and improvements are made with new tools made by manufacturing process. And so forth it goes. See DevOps for the software analogue.
- trynton 6y ago@CyberRabbi Given the way most modern software is made, refering to the makers as "software engineers" is a bit of an exaggeration. If you could visualize the average software project, a Rube Goldberg machine consisting of cogs, wheels, relays and bricks-and-pipes, all held together with duct tape.
- CyberRabbi 6y agoElectronic schematics are similarly ducktaped copy pasta from previous designs with tons of superfluous and redundant components that nobody understands why they are there. That is the nature of engineering, nothing specific to software engineers.