3 ms·

The entire article goes on in great length about how awe-inspiring the engineering of this cable is, whereas I just see a bunch of complexity that probabl

The entire article goes on in great length about how awe-inspiring the engineering of this cable is, whereas I just see a bunch of complexity that probably didn't need to be there. The 118 layers of paper tape, and the oil pumps, and so forth. Surely there was a simpler solution. http://www.howtospotapsychopath.com/2010/03/10/today-on-surf-celebrity-science-class/ http://www.howtospotapsychopath.com/2010/03/10/today-on-surf... Take care that you don't come down with "Engineers' Disease", though - the tendency for people with a high level of technical knowledge to decide that their knowledge must be applicable to specialised fields that they don't actually know a lot about. You are a programmer, not an electrical engineer. Wild speculation regarding a field you know little about is not attractive. Allow me to reverse your statement. "I don't see why programming for multicore processors has to be so complex. Why not just run four copies of the program on all four cores?" "I don't see why every web site makes you create a new account. Why not log into everything with my facebook account?" "I don't see why the legal system has to be so complex. Why not just have the judge decide everything, and get rid of the lawyers?"

pestaa 14y ago
Calling out parent's incompetency is fair I guess, although we still don't know why it was necessary to engineer a cable so much only to find out it has basic flaws, hence the assumption it is over-engineered in certain aspects and under-engineered in others.
jrockway 14y ago
"I don't see why programming for multicore processors has to be so complex. Why not just run four copies of the program on all four cores?" This is actually a good idea.
- whatshisface 14y ago
  That only works if your program is a one-way pipe for data, like a graphics card. Most programs need to communicate within themselves.
  - zurn 14y ago
    How about: Message passing is more robust than the currently prevailing shared memory + thread spaghetti practice. Many/most problems being attacked with the latter approach can be reformulated to use message passing and looser coupling.
    - dsego 14y ago
      Tanenbaum, is that you?
arjunb 14y ago
"I don't see why every web site makes you create a new account. Why not log into everything with my facebook account?" Actually for many web sites this is a pretty good idea too.
- AndrewDucker 14y ago
  Only if you don't mind a single party knowing what sites you use, and when you used them.

pestaa 14y ago

Calling out parent's incompetency is fair I guess, although we still don't know why it was necessary to engineer a cable so much only to find out it has basic flaws, hence the assumption it is over-engineered in certain aspects and under-engineered in others.

jrockway 14y ago

"I don't see why programming for multicore processors has to be so complex. Why not just run four copies of the program on all four cores?" This is actually a good idea.

whatshisface 14y ago
That only works if your program is a one-way pipe for data, like a graphics card. Most programs need to communicate within themselves.
- zurn 14y ago
  How about: Message passing is more robust than the currently prevailing shared memory + thread spaghetti practice. Many/most problems being attacked with the latter approach can be reformulated to use message passing and looser coupling.
  - dsego 14y ago
    Tanenbaum, is that you?

arjunb 14y ago

"I don't see why every web site makes you create a new account. Why not log into everything with my facebook account?" Actually for many web sites this is a pretty good idea too.

AndrewDucker 14y ago
Only if you don't mind a single party knowing what sites you use, and when you used them.