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For decades software engineers have moaned “why can’t software engineering be a real engineering discipline like civil engineering”. The travails of the legacy

by fmajid 3y ago

For decades software engineers have moaned “why can’t software engineering be a real engineering discipline like civil engineering”. The travails of the legacy car makers, compared to Tesla or Rivian, show conclusively mechanical engineering is easier.

Retr0id 3y ago
Or maybe there's just a stronger regulatory environment around mechanical engineering. If you sell cars whose fronts fall off, you're going to get in trouble. If your software updates fail, your users are mostly limited to complaining at you on twitter.
rightbyte 3y ago
Mechanical engineer is in no way easier. However, it is easier for a better mechanical engineer to spot issues in your design just by eying it, whereas software is for all practical purposes a black box unless you spend 100s of hours reading the code.
est31 3y ago
You take a software engineer's point of view. The people who build cars, especially at established car companies are mechanical engineers however. And they design consumer technology, they don't design military vehicles or ambulances, so their main goal is not reliability, never has been. Cars have constantly gotten harder to repair, more brittle, and if a repair is needed, you often have to, instead of being able to swap out a $5 component, replace larger components that the $5 component is part of. This is by design as replacement parts is a high margin revenue source for the car manufacturers. Why should the software side of things be any different?
analog31 3y ago
>>> why can’t software engineering be a real engineering discipline like civil engineering Programming pays better than civil engineering or mechanical engineering. The software team pays better than the hardware team, and programming in support of hardware pays like hardware. When asked why, the answer is: "Software is more valuable because it's closer to revenue." And: "Software has no cost after it has been written once." No manger or engineer can explain what this phrase means, but it's taken as conventional wisdom.
- ninjasaid13 3y ago
  "Software has no cost after it has been written once." well not if you're running a server.
lispisok 3y ago
I've done both. Software engineering is way easier. In traditional engineering you dont have "move fast and break things" and if you get sloppy with edge cases at best it could cost $$$ at worst people die. Cars have had computers controlling them for decades and didnt have these problems. What's happening now is auto makers are adopting the silicon valley way of doing things which worked ok for webapps but is horrible for hard goods.

by fmajid 3y ago

Retr0id 3y ago

Or maybe there's just a stronger regulatory environment around mechanical engineering. If you sell cars whose fronts fall off, you're going to get in trouble. If your software updates fail, your users are mostly limited to complaining at you on twitter.

rightbyte 3y ago

Mechanical engineer is in no way easier. However, it is easier for a better mechanical engineer to spot issues in your design just by eying it, whereas software is for all practical purposes a black box unless you spend 100s of hours reading the code.

est31 3y ago

You take a software engineer's point of view. The people who build cars, especially at established car companies are mechanical engineers however. And they design consumer technology, they don't design military vehicles or ambulances, so their main goal is not reliability, never has been. Cars have constantly gotten harder to repair, more brittle, and if a repair is needed, you often have to, instead of being able to swap out a $5 component, replace larger components that the $5 component is part of. This is by design as replacement parts is a high margin revenue source for the car manufacturers. Why should the software side of things be any different?

analog31 3y ago

>>> why can’t software engineering be a real engineering discipline like civil engineering Programming pays better than civil engineering or mechanical engineering. The software team pays better than the hardware team, and programming in support of hardware pays like hardware. When asked why, the answer is: "Software is more valuable because it's closer to revenue." And: "Software has no cost after it has been written once." No manger or engineer can explain what this phrase means, but it's taken as conventional wisdom.

ninjasaid13 3y ago
"Software has no cost after it has been written once." well not if you're running a server.

lispisok 3y ago

I've done both. Software engineering is way easier. In traditional engineering you dont have "move fast and break things" and if you get sloppy with edge cases at best it could cost $$$ at worst people die. Cars have had computers controlling them for decades and didnt have these problems. What's happening now is auto makers are adopting the silicon valley way of doing things which worked ok for webapps but is horrible for hard goods.