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I'm not sure if you're trolling or not, but I'm thinking the same for my fictive automotive manufacturing corporation. Engineers are expensive; I'd rather quick

by rahen 4y ago

I'm not sure if you're trolling or not, but I'm thinking the same for my fictive automotive manufacturing corporation. Engineers are expensive; I'd rather quickly cobble up something with chinesium parts that somewhat rolls and gets 50MPG with a terrible safety record, so I can transfer the costs to society. Gas and insurance policies are cheap, especially if you're not the one paying for them. Engineers are not. Let's do the same with aircraft and software and everything else and see how things turn out.

djbusby 4y ago
It's maybe trolling. > Hardware is cheap, especially when you are not the one paying for it. Engineers are expensive for your company. This is true and MBAs love to put the costs somewhere else. The software only has to work well enough for my next bonus and line item on my CV.
- scotty79 4y ago
  Is he wrong though?
  - alxlaz 4y ago
    Ask the guy who tried to call 911 from a phone whose software was just good enough for an MBA's next bonus ;-).
hansworst 4y ago
We absolutely do this, in every possible industry. The first cars weren't anywhere near the efficiency they have today, and the ones we have today aren't anywhere near theoretical max efficiency either. In the real world, you always have to make a tradeoff between delivering some value now and delivering the maximum theoretical value at some potentially non-existent point in the future. And after some time, throwing more money at the problem won't increase the value output by that same amount, and so you have to accept that your product is imperfect, but still adds some value. Add to that some market mechanisms that exist in the software world, where it's often better to move fast and capture a large share of the market than to polish your product and be left with no users. And suddenly building your app with Electron doesn't seem so bad from the point of view of someone who just wants to solve their users' problems. If the app turns out to add real value, you can always polish it later and do a rewrite in assembly. If it doesn't, at least you didn't spend five years writing that chat app when you could have done something more interesting.
itsoktocry 4y ago
>Engineers are expensive; I'd rather quickly cobble up something with chinesium parts that somewhat rolls and gets 50MPG with a terrible safety record You should read about JB Straubel's experience hacking together some of the first Tesla prototypes in the garage. You're not really saving on engineering costs. Parts you intend to break, sure, but it's not easy to cobble together.
mrtesthah 4y ago
>Let's do the same with aircraft and software and everything else and see how things turn out. Exactly. Who needs a quality steak when you’ve got McDonald’s around the corner? So much cheaper, too. In fact let’s just replace all restaurants with McDonald’s. It makes a profit so it must not be wrong.
TheAceOfHearts 4y ago
You're joking, but I've read that's not far off from how a lot of modern car manufacturing works. The development of most parts gets outsourced to various companies and the car company just assembles everything. I learned about this in an interview which claimed that Tesla was bucking the outsourcing trend by increasingly inhousing more and more car parts in order to have a greater competitive advantage.

by rahen 4y ago

djbusby 4y ago

It's maybe trolling. > Hardware is cheap, especially when you are not the one paying for it. Engineers are expensive for your company. This is true and MBAs love to put the costs somewhere else. The software only has to work well enough for my next bonus and line item on my CV.

scotty79 4y ago
Is he wrong though?
- alxlaz 4y ago
  Ask the guy who tried to call 911 from a phone whose software was just good enough for an MBA's next bonus ;-).

hansworst 4y ago

We absolutely do this, in every possible industry. The first cars weren't anywhere near the efficiency they have today, and the ones we have today aren't anywhere near theoretical max efficiency either. In the real world, you always have to make a tradeoff between delivering some value now and delivering the maximum theoretical value at some potentially non-existent point in the future. And after some time, throwing more money at the problem won't increase the value output by that same amount, and so you have to accept that your product is imperfect, but still adds some value. Add to that some market mechanisms that exist in the software world, where it's often better to move fast and capture a large share of the market than to polish your product and be left with no users. And suddenly building your app with Electron doesn't seem so bad from the point of view of someone who just wants to solve their users' problems. If the app turns out to add real value, you can always polish it later and do a rewrite in assembly. If it doesn't, at least you didn't spend five years writing that chat app when you could have done something more interesting.

itsoktocry 4y ago

>Engineers are expensive; I'd rather quickly cobble up something with chinesium parts that somewhat rolls and gets 50MPG with a terrible safety record You should read about JB Straubel's experience hacking together some of the first Tesla prototypes in the garage. You're not really saving on engineering costs. Parts you intend to break, sure, but it's not easy to cobble together.

mrtesthah 4y ago

>Let's do the same with aircraft and software and everything else and see how things turn out. Exactly. Who needs a quality steak when you’ve got McDonald’s around the corner? So much cheaper, too. In fact let’s just replace all restaurants with McDonald’s. It makes a profit so it must not be wrong.

TheAceOfHearts 4y ago

You're joking, but I've read that's not far off from how a lot of modern car manufacturing works. The development of most parts gets outsourced to various companies and the car company just assembles everything. I learned about this in an interview which claimed that Tesla was bucking the outsourcing trend by increasingly inhousing more and more car parts in order to have a greater competitive advantage.