271–280 of 282 posts
Jesus this is stupid.
There are people in these comments unironically suggesting running an express web server for a doorbell lmao.
https://philip.greenspun.com/humor/eecs-difference-explained
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's controversial because your definition of "over-engineered" is different from most other people's understanding of the term. Most people would take it to mean "using more complex systems than needed to achieve a given outcome", while you are defining it more like "using any system at all to achieve an outcome that I consider unnecessary". The former definition is somewhat objective in that it can be tested and pr…
I am not saying every product has to be the absolute minimum, that's an absurdist interpretation of what I mean. I am saying that people can call something "overengineered" and "it was the requirement" is not a defence. Maybe what I mean is: Feature creep does contribute to overengineering . That's not controversial in the engineering community at all .
> I am saying that people can call something "overengineered" and "it was the requirement" is not a defence.
Okay, so you're not saying to reject all above-minimum features, but then there seems to be no objective criteria, so who is deciding which ones to reject? Why is it not the customer?
And it's not a does-nothing feature either, it has a meaningful impact on the user.
> Maybe what I mean is: Feature creep does contribute to overengineering. That's not controversial in the engineering community at all.
A requirement from the start, the baseline of the product pitch, is the opposite of feature creep.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And you're still failing the challenge of understanding my point, over and over. The person who gave an opinion about whether this is overengineered or not was Lukeify, not me: > You are super-sensitive to over-engineering, so you over-engineered your requirements and ultimately your end product, just in a different methodology and framework. It's still over-engineering to a lot of people, including lukeify, regardle…
We all understand your point: you believe the feature is unnecessary in the first place, without any understanding of my particular situation why I actually need it. Regardless, this is irrelevant to the point of this entire thread, which is that it's possible to design a device, as I did, that is vastly simpler than commercial doorbells allowing user-customizable chimes.
Here, someone else explained. Maybe you can understand better if it comes from someone else: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49508403
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About Excel, that’s not what I meant, in my head at least. For any 1 excel user the software looks over engineered. So many complex features not being used... by them. But from the product perspective it probably does exactly what all the users need as a group. Is a coffee machine with 1000 parts over engineered? For home use yes. For use on the ISS probably not. Context is important, take something out of context an…
The original poster claiming "over engineering!" is the one that wants to "just change the ringtone," apparently failing to realize that the products they're comparing too were never meant to "just change the ringtone." (i.e. they need to cater to a wider audience to be successful) I can't be sure about whstl, but that's my only point. And, really, nothing against going to great expense/effort to build exactly what o…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
About Excel, that’s not what I meant, in my head at least. For any 1 excel user the software looks over engineered. So many complex features not being used... by them. But from the product perspective it probably does exactly what all the users need as a group. Is a coffee machine with 1000 parts over engineered? For home use yes. For use on the ISS probably not. Context is important, take something out of context an…
The original poster claiming "over engineering!" is the one that wants to "just change the ringtone," apparently failing to realize that the products they're comparing too were never meant to "just change the ringtone." (i.e. they need to cater to a wider audience to be successful) I can't be sure about whstl, but that's my only point. And, really, nothing against going to great expense/effort to build exactly what o…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am not saying every product has to be the absolute minimum, that's an absurdist interpretation of what I mean. I am saying that people can call something "overengineered" and "it was the requirement" is not a defence. Maybe what I mean is: Feature creep does contribute to overengineering . That's not controversial in the engineering community at all .
> I am not saying every product has to be the absolute minimum, that's an absurdist interpretation of what I mean. > I am saying that people can call something "overengineered" and "it was the requirement" is not a defence. Okay, so you're not saying to reject all above-minimum features, but then there seems to be no objective criteria, so who is deciding which ones to reject? Why is it not the customer? And it's not…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Your whole case rests on the insistence that OP's core requirement is no good I never said it wasn't good. I just said it led to over-engineering a doorbell. "Good" or "bad" are words you're putting in my mouth.
Now you're trying to weasel out of this (whstl out?). I was trying to be diplomatic and use "good/bad" as shorthand for "should be part of a well engineered (not over/under) product or not". You don't like it, then let me use what you actually said: engineers who implement all the requirements given to them are like the Nazi soldiers who executed the people they were ordered to execute. Neither good nor bad, just ove…
And I said exactly the opposite of that.
Doing bad things is bad, despite following orders.
Over-engineering is over-engineering, despite following requirements.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I am not saying every product has to be the absolute minimum, that's an absurdist interpretation of what I mean. > I am saying that people can call something "overengineered" and "it was the requirement" is not a defence. Okay, so you're not saying to reject all above-minimum features, but then there seems to be no objective criteria, so who is deciding which ones to reject? Why is it not the customer? And it's not…
You can have any features you want, but people get to call it over-engineering if they say so, and "it's in the requirements" is not a shield against it.
But it helps to have somewhat objective criteria, like whether it was feature creep. And this was not feature creep. And custom sound for something like this is a desirable feature for the average person; you can look at the massive ringtone business in the 00s to prove that.