What is negative engineering?
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What is negative engineering?
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Re: What is negative engineering?
#2"Negative engineering" as described here is also especially challenging to test. Requires extraordinary backflips to construct reasonable approximations to the edge conditions, corner cases, external factors, and unreasonable contingencies against which you're trying to defend.
The same "Happy Path is just 20% of code" imbalance extends through test rig, tribal knowledge, and effort required. In some cases, 20% seems fantastically generous. IME preventing failures that only occur at heavy load or during other errors may be 95%+ of your effort and represent 99%+ of your "value add."
Re: What is negative engineering?
#3> They _insure_ the outcomes that positive engineering tools are used to achieve.
Ugh such a tacky abuse of words. Context around that sentence implies it should be "ensure". No, this is just yet another ad promoting gimmicky work for consultants to sell.
I understand HN is definitely the place to post this stuff, but I was expecting something more interesting.
Re: What is negative engineering?
#4> They _insure_ the outcomes that positive engineering tools are used to achieve. Ugh such a tacky abuse of words. Context around that sentence implies it should be "ensure". No, this is just yet another ad promoting gimmicky work for consultants to sell. I understand HN is definitely the place to post this stuff, but I was expecting something more interesting.
The context around that sentence does quite explicitly intends to insure the outcomes because you can't really ensure it. I mean, the paragraph literally starts with "Insurance as code”.
Re: What is negative engineering?
#5See, treating this as an add-on is why software has a reputation as "not real engineering".
Engineering is all about turning science into products. Anyone with a chemical lab and enough post-grad grunt can make a compound. That's just the start. Getting it to customers, at scale, with a saleable price and not selling poison, contamination, or thin air and not turning your plant into a crater or superfund site is the task. It just happens to involve a bit of chemistry along the way.
You can't just complain from the smoking ruins of your startup "but the happy path we tweeted about when we did it in a flask worked fine, how could we know it would be hard to make 50 tons of FOOF a day?"
It's not always glamorous, it's not always fun, it's not even always innovative, it's almost certainly never easy, but it is what you're actually selling, and it's why you're the one selling it and not someone else.
Now, can you cut corners and make it work, say, 99% of the time and that's good enough to ship it and sit back[1]? Sure you can. But if someone comes along at 99.9% and the same price, or even a higher price and your customers will pay for that extra 9, you're in trouble.
[1]: or ship 99% code thinking it's 100% because you didn't check
Re: What is negative engineering?
#6[deleted]
Re: What is negative engineering?
#7See, treating this as an add-on is why software has a reputation as "not real engineering". Engineering is all about turning science into products . Anyone with a chemical lab and enough post-grad grunt can make a compound. That's just the start. Getting it to customers, at scale, with a saleable price and not selling poison, contamination, or thin air and not turning your plant into a crater or superfund site is the…
> Anyone with a chemical lab...not turning your plant into a crater or superfund site...how could we know it would be hard to make 50 tons of FOOF a day?
For additional context to the mental imagery, I thought it would be appropriate to link FOOF: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dioxygen_difluoride
Re: What is negative engineering?
#8>Negative engineering is the time-consuming and sometimes frustrating work that engineers undertake to ensure the success of their primary objectives
You don't need another name for this. This is part of the engineering process.
Re: What is negative engineering?
#9> What is Negative Engineering?
"Negative engineering" is a term coined and championed by Jeremiah Lowin, apparently. Most search engine hits on the term are his or kindly refer to him.
He uses it to mean coding for the negative test cases.
Re: What is negative engineering?
#10> They _insure_ the outcomes that positive engineering tools are used to achieve. Ugh such a tacky abuse of words. Context around that sentence implies it should be "ensure". No, this is just yet another ad promoting gimmicky work for consultants to sell. I understand HN is definitely the place to post this stuff, but I was expecting something more interesting.
I think it's emphasised exactly to avoid it being misread as 'ensure', I don't read it as an intended pun. Doesn't really make sense to 'ensure the outcomes', you 'ensure a good outcome' or something.