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You're criticizing the prioritization of cost, not the concept of trying to solve for constraints. Engineering is about constrained optimization to meet custome

by jjmarr 2y ago

You're criticizing the prioritization of cost, not the concept of trying to solve for constraints. Engineering is about constrained optimization to meet customer needs.[1] Learning this is a core part of the curriculum at my accredited engineering school. > Engineering design is a process of making informed decisions to creatively devise products, systems, components, or processes to meet specified goals based on engineering analysis and judgement. The process is often characterized as complex, open-ended, iterative, and multidisciplinary. Solutions incorporate natural sciences, mathematics, and engineering science, using systematic and current best practices to satisfy defined objectives within identified requirements, criteria and constraints. > Constraints to be considered may include (but are not limited to): health and safety, sustainability, environmental, ethical, security, economic, aesthetics and human factors, feasibility and compliance with regulatory aspects, along with universal design issues such as societal, cultural and diversification facets. It's not an MBA philosophy but is intrinsic to the profession. Apollo didn't go up because of vibes, it went up because engineers knew the goals going in and to figured out how much fuel was needed to go to the moon. It also went up because the United States was willing to spend over a quarter of a trillion dollars (adjusted for inflation) on getting there,[2] and ignored the arguments that it was a giant waste of money while there were social problems at home.[3] [1]https://egad.engineering.queensu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/CEAB-Update_GACIP-Summit_December-13-2022.pdf https://egad.engineering.queensu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/... [2] https://www.planetary.org/space-policy/cost-of-apollo https://www.planetary.org/space-policy/cost-of-apollo [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitey_on_the_Moon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitey_on_the_Moon

areoform 2y ago
This comment isn't directed at you jjmarr, I appreciate your take, but I think it's important to point out that, > constrained optimization to meet customer needs is MBA-capture in action. For most of its existence as a formal field, engineering wasn't about making geegaws that "meet customer needs." It was about building stuff that matters. Houses that didn't collapse. Roads and machines that made it possible to traverse vast distances. Toys that delighted us. Aquaducts that delivered clean water. Drainage that helped remove muck. Plumbing that cleaned our cities. Threshers that helped us harvest crops. Lights that vanquished the dark. The story of engineering is the story of creating technology that helps alleviate want. You can say that there was a "customer" for each, which is great and all, but that's not why we did it. We did it so that we could move out of the caves and not be in filth and muck all the time. We did it because it felt good. And we did it because it was the right thing to do.
- cratermoon 2y ago
  The constrained optimization part is good, though.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  I think you are presenting a romanticized fictional narrative, especially when it comes to aerospace. When engineers were working on Apollo and lunar landers, they were working on a set of customer requirements a mile long. Roving tinkerers didn't build the moon rockets. Engineers spent countless hours in design reviews with the customer, in this case, NASA. Roman engineers didn't build aqueducts and colosseums on a lark, or some sense of poetic destiny.
- tremon 2y ago
  I don't understand what you are objecting to. Is it just the phrasing that's bothering you? Because from my point of view, "houses that don't collapse" and "machines that can travel vast distances" are all formulations of customer needs. And dealing with contraints is pretty much engineering 101, every project is at the very least constrained on two of these axes: cost, construction time or material availability.
  - rout39574 2y ago
    Not GP, but I think the objection is: the engineer wants to build a thing cheaply enough that it functions, and then cheaply as can be while maintaining function. The MBA wants to build a thing as cheaply as can be while extracting maximum value from the process. Maintaining function is only relevant inasmuch as is necessary for marketing. Enshittification is offensive to the engineer, and is a deliberate calculated tactic for the MBA. We're replete with case studies, but my favorite is Kitchen-Aid mixers which accumulated a reputation when they were the small version of Hobart mixers, and have in succeeding decades become a cheap pile of crap because the optimization does not care about quality of function so long as the appearance of quality can be maintained. And it's cheaper to look quality than it is to be so. A close second is Singer in the '70s, which for a while decided to ship items with 100-hour motors because "Folks don't usually spend much time _actually_ sewing". Contrast with the machines built a centuryish before. We've got an early electric model which is still doing fantastic precise work. The engineer would enthuse over the superb work that went into building such a tool, and the MBA would focus on the foregone sales, the value not extracted.

by jjmarr 2y ago

areoform 2y ago

This comment isn't directed at you jjmarr, I appreciate your take, but I think it's important to point out that, > constrained optimization to meet customer needs is MBA-capture in action. For most of its existence as a formal field, engineering wasn't about making geegaws that "meet customer needs." It was about building stuff that matters. Houses that didn't collapse. Roads and machines that made it possible to traverse vast distances. Toys that delighted us. Aquaducts that delivered clean water. Drainage that helped remove muck. Plumbing that cleaned our cities. Threshers that helped us harvest crops. Lights that vanquished the dark. The story of engineering is the story of creating technology that helps alleviate want. You can say that there was a "customer" for each, which is great and all, but that's not why we did it. We did it so that we could move out of the caves and not be in filth and muck all the time. We did it because it felt good. And we did it because it was the right thing to do.

cratermoon 2y ago
The constrained optimization part is good, though.
s1artibartfast 2y ago
I think you are presenting a romanticized fictional narrative, especially when it comes to aerospace. When engineers were working on Apollo and lunar landers, they were working on a set of customer requirements a mile long. Roving tinkerers didn't build the moon rockets. Engineers spent countless hours in design reviews with the customer, in this case, NASA. Roman engineers didn't build aqueducts and colosseums on a lark, or some sense of poetic destiny.
tremon 2y ago
I don't understand what you are objecting to. Is it just the phrasing that's bothering you? Because from my point of view, "houses that don't collapse" and "machines that can travel vast distances" are all formulations of customer needs. And dealing with contraints is pretty much engineering 101, every project is at the very least constrained on two of these axes: cost, construction time or material availability.
- rout39574 2y ago
  Not GP, but I think the objection is: the engineer wants to build a thing cheaply enough that it functions, and then cheaply as can be while maintaining function. The MBA wants to build a thing as cheaply as can be while extracting maximum value from the process. Maintaining function is only relevant inasmuch as is necessary for marketing. Enshittification is offensive to the engineer, and is a deliberate calculated tactic for the MBA. We're replete with case studies, but my favorite is Kitchen-Aid mixers which accumulated a reputation when they were the small version of Hobart mixers, and have in succeeding decades become a cheap pile of crap because the optimization does not care about quality of function so long as the appearance of quality can be maintained. And it's cheaper to look quality than it is to be so. A close second is Singer in the '70s, which for a while decided to ship items with 100-hour motors because "Folks don't usually spend much time _actually_ sewing". Contrast with the machines built a centuryish before. We've got an early electric model which is still doing fantastic precise work. The engineer would enthuse over the superb work that went into building such a tool, and the MBA would focus on the foregone sales, the value not extracted.