More then just engineers, we all need to study history
Engineers will do anything to avoid learning from history
61–70 of 124 posts
Re: Engineers will do anything to avoid learning from history
#62I'm a hands on engineering leader for a team of about 20 engineers and I've been spending the past 6 months trying to get my team to understand just this. On Friday we had a coffee hour to share how we've been working recently and they all seemed perplexed at the workflows I've been adopting. It seems natural to me as someone who's been a manager for some time now, but very alien to all those who've never gone down t…
Is anyone on your team not using multi agent?
Re: Engineers will do anything to avoid learning from history
#63The author missed one key motivation: giant fucking ego. I don’t know why every damn software engineer thinks they are gods gift and can derive anything from first principles. The OP hinted at it with the physicist XKCD but I think it is far more dominant in software because the payouts for mediocrity are just astronomical.
Re: Engineers will do anything to avoid learning from history
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yet this is part correct, part wrong. Indeed every industry has some unique challenges that are not directly solvable. However, while a cast is absurdly expensive, the problem is being solved in large part by software in the FDM (3D printing) space and it's changing how things are built. edit: this doesn't invalidate the OP thesis, which I strongly agree with. Except that it's not just engineers, this is a more gener…
That's totally untrue. You clearly do not have any experience designing, building, manufacturing, testing, and certifying either cast metal or PBF parts. BTW, PBF is powerbed fusion and it is how you make 3D printed metal parts. FDM is a plastic manufacturing process and has nothing at all to do with replacing metal castings. For a certain aircraft part that I designed, that measured approximately 16"x8"x10", if you…
Do you see that changing as parts are designed for additive manufacturing? Things that basically cannot be made another way, but have strength, weight, and even functional benefits over a traditionally made part?
I’m thinking of say cooling channels built into walls of rocket combustion chambers, or car brake/axle assemblies, and some of the „organic“ designs that are lighter and stronger than a cast/machined part.
Re: Engineers will do anything to avoid learning from history
#65This isn't an issue for engineers only, it is basically ingrained in the current system in the world. The problem is in simple terms; the fact that being a polymath is absurdly hard in today's world. You can't not reinvent something if you don't know it exists in the first place. The thing about software is that it slots nicely into every other field, making it a _very_ good base to work off of to get concepts (aka t…
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Re: Engineers will do anything to avoid learning from history
#66The central point, that working with agents is some tried and true variation of existing processes, is incorrect.
Managing agents has some similarities with EM and program management but a whole lot of other dimensions like token use, avoiding drift, successful concurrency at scale, variations in prompting, testing, evaluation, etc., not to mention that the agents are hyperintelligent coders with zero common sense and a penchant for extremely literal interpretation and ultra-verbosity.
Re: Engineers will do anything to avoid learning from history
#67Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49309451
> Working with AI feels more like leadership than coding
Re: Engineers will do anything to avoid learning from history
#68Seems like this could be categorized as yet another reason why software developers are not engineers.
Do people seriously care about this debate? I don't even use the term software engineer. I usually just say [computer] programmer. Though depending on my mood I might say I am virtual firefighter, and believe me, there are always virtual fires that need to be put out.
Re: Engineers will do anything to avoid learning from history
#69He says "engineers" but he means code monkeys. Actual engineering is all about learning from past failures
All while creating new ones. :)
Re: Engineers will do anything to avoid learning from history
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
The joke at my school was when the engineering students failed (mech, EE, civ) out, they went into business, when they failed out of business they went into software engineering.
And what happened when they failed out of "software engineering"?
Psychology.