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>How many here are actual engineers by profession? Almost none, because "software engineers" aren't _actual_ Engineers! (ducks for cover) But really, this was

>How many here are actual engineers by profession? Almost none, because "software engineers" aren't _actual_ Engineers! (ducks for cover) But really, this was a huge step in the right direction on the cutting edge of propulsion science and spaceflight. SpaceX will iterate and in a few months/years everyone here will be telling you how "they always knew it would work" and "starship succeeding was obvious"

jpgvm 3y ago
Can confirm, am "Software Engineer" but from a family of Real Engineers™, what we do on a day to day basis only resembles engineering in the weakest sense. Both professions iterate on failure but Real Engineers actually spend a significant amount of time studying each failure and drawing strong conclusions based on collected data. We can do that (and sometimes do) but usually just hack it and re-run the tests until it works, can't really do that with a physical test though unless you have reduced your problem down to a small test article (something programmers should always do because it's cheap and easy). Our field is young and lacks the rigorousness of Real Engineering. We probably don't want to adopt all of it because our cost and risk profiles are hugely different but there is a lot to learn from Real Engineers about how to iterate better and get better bang for our buck out of our failures.
- dotnet00 3y ago
  Agreed, I think us software people are too used to the 'safety' and conveniences of the abstract world of software. Besides the comparatively smaller amount of people working on software for safety critical stuff, most of us are too used to just being able to quickly hack together fixes, where for safety critical stuff you do have to work with similar rigor as 'real' engineering and failures result in similar reviews of processes leading up to them. For example, after Starliner's first test flight's software debacle, NASA ordered a full safety review of all of Boeing's software practices, for all of their projects - planes and spacecraft. Most of us don't have to deal with that amount of rigor over buggy code.
kanbara 3y ago
it’s great about cutting edge tech and spaceflight, but could do without the needless callout. i and many engineers i know build, support, and run life-critical systems, emergency systems, flight software, and more. software absolutely needs more discipline but to be so derisive isn’t ideal.

jpgvm 3y ago

Can confirm, am "Software Engineer" but from a family of Real Engineers™, what we do on a day to day basis only resembles engineering in the weakest sense. Both professions iterate on failure but Real Engineers actually spend a significant amount of time studying each failure and drawing strong conclusions based on collected data. We can do that (and sometimes do) but usually just hack it and re-run the tests until it works, can't really do that with a physical test though unless you have reduced your problem down to a small test article (something programmers should always do because it's cheap and easy). Our field is young and lacks the rigorousness of Real Engineering. We probably don't want to adopt all of it because our cost and risk profiles are hugely different but there is a lot to learn from Real Engineers about how to iterate better and get better bang for our buck out of our failures.

dotnet00 3y ago
Agreed, I think us software people are too used to the 'safety' and conveniences of the abstract world of software. Besides the comparatively smaller amount of people working on software for safety critical stuff, most of us are too used to just being able to quickly hack together fixes, where for safety critical stuff you do have to work with similar rigor as 'real' engineering and failures result in similar reviews of processes leading up to them. For example, after Starliner's first test flight's software debacle, NASA ordered a full safety review of all of Boeing's software practices, for all of their projects - planes and spacecraft. Most of us don't have to deal with that amount of rigor over buggy code.

kanbara 3y ago

it’s great about cutting edge tech and spaceflight, but could do without the needless callout. i and many engineers i know build, support, and run life-critical systems, emergency systems, flight software, and more. software absolutely needs more discipline but to be so derisive isn’t ideal.