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> Diagrams are a communication tool. No more, no less. The vast majority aren't up-to-date, complete or even completely accurate... In industrial process engin

> Diagrams are a communication tool. No more, no less. The vast majority aren't up-to-date, complete or even completely accurate... In industrial process engineering, diagrams of process flow and instrumentation are literally part of "The Plan". They are included with architectural, mechanical, and electrical drawings; signed of by professional engineers and jurisdictional authorities; and passed to contractors to build. If there's a need to deviate from "The Plan", it gets documented and then a revision is created. It has always surprised me how software as an industry gets away with sketchy documentation

adiabatichottub 2y ago
I should add, Los Alamos National Labs has a great set of engineering drawing examples: https://engstandards.lanl.gov/Dwgs_Details.shtml https://engstandards.lanl.gov/Dwgs_Details.shtml
chasd00 2y ago
> It has always surprised me how software as an industry gets away with sketchy documentation very true, the best documentation i've seen isn't even drafted until after the software is already in production.
- magicalhippo 2y ago
  On the flip side, few things end up like planned. Customers don't even know how their systems work, and only discover the edge cases they had handled in the old system when they discover it suddenly not working in the new system, and so on. When I ask customers "does X ever happen" and they say "no, never", I now assume that means "possibly, but seldom". If I need to make sure, I drill them hard on it. I've been in meetings where a line manager doesn't know that one of the workers they manage performs a critical business operation daily, without which the whole thing would grind to a halt. That's one level up. No wonder those who decide, many levels above that, have no idea and get it wrong.
icedchai 2y ago
"Agile" has only made this worse.
- swat535 2y ago
  I mean it’s easy to pick on Agile but the reason it was introduced was because Waterfall approach clelarly didn’t work. Unlike other kind of engineering software is much more iterative and flexible, so designing a process around this makes more sense.
  - Balooga 2y ago
    I have been involved in numerous "waterfall" software projects and the majority were successful. This is because the "waterfall" process was never as the Agile proponents describe it. Successful "waterfall" projects are always iterative. You know what didn't work? SAFe Agile.
  - icedchai 2y ago
    I never worked anywhere that was truly waterfall and I've been in the industry for almost 30 years. The best projects I worked on have been iterative with some sort of upfront design phase for each iteration, where an "iteration" was a large chunk... like a couple months... You might hear this referred to as the "spiral" model. There are many shades of gray between "waterfall" and true "agile" and I'd argue that neither extreme actually works.

adiabatichottub 2y ago

I should add, Los Alamos National Labs has a great set of engineering drawing examples: https://engstandards.lanl.gov/Dwgs_Details.shtml https://engstandards.lanl.gov/Dwgs_Details.shtml

chasd00 2y ago

> It has always surprised me how software as an industry gets away with sketchy documentation very true, the best documentation i've seen isn't even drafted until after the software is already in production.

magicalhippo 2y ago
On the flip side, few things end up like planned. Customers don't even know how their systems work, and only discover the edge cases they had handled in the old system when they discover it suddenly not working in the new system, and so on. When I ask customers "does X ever happen" and they say "no, never", I now assume that means "possibly, but seldom". If I need to make sure, I drill them hard on it. I've been in meetings where a line manager doesn't know that one of the workers they manage performs a critical business operation daily, without which the whole thing would grind to a halt. That's one level up. No wonder those who decide, many levels above that, have no idea and get it wrong.

icedchai 2y ago

"Agile" has only made this worse.

swat535 2y ago
I mean it’s easy to pick on Agile but the reason it was introduced was because Waterfall approach clelarly didn’t work. Unlike other kind of engineering software is much more iterative and flexible, so designing a process around this makes more sense.
- Balooga 2y ago
  I have been involved in numerous "waterfall" software projects and the majority were successful. This is because the "waterfall" process was never as the Agile proponents describe it. Successful "waterfall" projects are always iterative. You know what didn't work? SAFe Agile.
- icedchai 2y ago
  I never worked anywhere that was truly waterfall and I've been in the industry for almost 30 years. The best projects I worked on have been iterative with some sort of upfront design phase for each iteration, where an "iteration" was a large chunk... like a couple months... You might hear this referred to as the "spiral" model. There are many shades of gray between "waterfall" and true "agile" and I'd argue that neither extreme actually works.