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I counter with the experience of repeatedly encountering plain average admin assistants who have managed to hack together Excel spreadsheets that do exactly wha

by adammil 13y ago

I counter with the experience of repeatedly encountering plain average admin assistants who have managed to hack together Excel spreadsheets that do exactly what they need to. And all the crappy little bridges that villages whip together from random garbage that they walk on every day for five years. From an engineering viewpoint, these creations are delicate monstrosities, but for the user they are absolutely beloved and insanely efficient. And they are the epitome of highly iterative creations starting with a barely half-baked idea and zero engineering training. Also, have you really convinced yourself that "perfect, robust, unbreakably done shit" actually exists anywhere in the world for someone to view it? Even the space program, in my opinion the pinnacle of human engineering achievement, had several exploded rockets and dead astronauts, and was quite iterative.

derefr 13y ago
I never said that '"perfect, robust, unbreakably done shit" actually exists anywhere in the world'--merely that it can be conceived of, and then strived for. Knowing what it would look like if you saw it, and how it would be different from a kludge, is exactly what makes you an Engineer. Also, I never said one needs training to be a programmer. As far as I've seen, it's a perfectly natural (or nurtural, whatever) talent, that one then hones over time. The "programmer", selling their work as a programmer, is a false positive: someone who is in the term, but not in the natural category. The admin assistant, serving as their own client and creating a System to suit themselves, is a false negative: someone who isn't, nominally, a programmer, but is in the category. If you can formalize an idea into something that Works, you are an Engineer. Nobody needs to hand you a certificate; you don't need to call yourself one, or even know you are one; you just are. It's a detectable, testable property of your mental architecture. The problem is that nobody ever told this to some of the people trying to make their livings as programmers. They're like portrait-artists with dysgraphia, but unlike with that condition, they are the majority of humanity. Actually, let's take that analogy further, it seems sound: 1. Let's say 90% of the population is dysgraphic; 2. but "portrait artist" is a highly-compensated, "in-vogue" field; 3. additionally, the client has no idea how to judge the portrait (maybe an independent 90% of the population is also blind), so any flaws in it won't show up until it gets exhibited several months later; 4. and (okay this is getting a bit ridiculous, but I'll keep on with it) most portaits are the works of several portrait artists, so it's hard to say who caused a given flaw. If all these things were true, the average portrait-artist's ability would entirely illegible--you couldn't judge them on results, nor on past performance. This would encourage a market for lemons. Additionally, the set of (people with dysgraphia & people willing to lie and say they can paint) would, just by numerical advantage, outweigh "people who can actually do their jobs" in the portraiture market. It would do to be extremely skeptical. But still, there would be false negatives; people who never even considered portraiture, but aren't dysgraphic. Maybe at one point a friend of your admin-assistant asks them to doodle them for a newsletter, and they produce something that Actually Looks Good. Surprise! Usually, though, the nose will be on the forehead.

by adammil 13y ago

derefr 13y ago

I never said that '"perfect, robust, unbreakably done shit" actually exists anywhere in the world'--merely that it can be conceived of, and then strived for. Knowing what it would look like if you saw it, and how it would be different from a kludge, is exactly what makes you an Engineer. Also, I never said one needs training to be a programmer. As far as I've seen, it's a perfectly natural (or nurtural, whatever) talent, that one then hones over time. The "programmer", selling their work as a programmer, is a false positive: someone who is in the term, but not in the natural category. The admin assistant, serving as their own client and creating a System to suit themselves, is a false negative: someone who isn't, nominally, a programmer, but is in the category. If you can formalize an idea into something that Works, you are an Engineer. Nobody needs to hand you a certificate; you don't need to call yourself one, or even know you are one; you just are. It's a detectable, testable property of your mental architecture. The problem is that nobody ever told this to some of the people trying to make their livings as programmers. They're like portrait-artists with dysgraphia, but unlike with that condition, they are the majority of humanity. Actually, let's take that analogy further, it seems sound: 1. Let's say 90% of the population is dysgraphic; 2. but "portrait artist" is a highly-compensated, "in-vogue" field; 3. additionally, the client has no idea how to judge the portrait (maybe an independent 90% of the population is also blind), so any flaws in it won't show up until it gets exhibited several months later; 4. and (okay this is getting a bit ridiculous, but I'll keep on with it) most portaits are the works of several portrait artists, so it's hard to say who caused a given flaw. If all these things were true, the average portrait-artist's ability would entirely illegible--you couldn't judge them on results, nor on past performance. This would encourage a market for lemons. Additionally, the set of (people with dysgraphia & people willing to lie and say they can paint) would, just by numerical advantage, outweigh "people who can actually do their jobs" in the portraiture market. It would do to be extremely skeptical. But still, there would be false negatives; people who never even considered portraiture, but aren't dysgraphic. Maybe at one point a friend of your admin-assistant asks them to doodle them for a newsletter, and they produce something that Actually Looks Good. Surprise! Usually, though, the nose will be on the forehead.