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Comment by Anechoic | Hacker News Reader

I hate to be that guy, but this isn't "Design Secrets For Engineers", it's "Design Secrets For Software Engineers." (or developers/UIX/etc).

"Keep visual hierarchy in check" and "Use designer fonts" isn't very useful advice in designing an instrumented hammer...

"Engineering," especially in the colloquial usage of the word, covers a lot areas that have things in common, but there are lots of things those areas don't have in common. Software engineering /= all of engineering anymore than mechanical engineering represents all of engineering.

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I hate to be that guy

Then don't be. It's posted on HN - the context makes it pretty obvious.

If a computer could trivially work out it was likely to be about software engineering using Bayesian reasoning ("engineer" in title AND posted on HN) then a person should be able to as well.

>It's posted on HN - the context makes it pretty obvious.

I've read (and commented on) all kinds of front-page articles of interest to non-software hackers & engineers, including articles on the economy, construction projects, healthcare, education, transportation, and other issues:

I'm not aware that this is a forum that caters to software-only topics. Please enlighten me if I am mistaken. I'm certainly not a software guy and yet HN is one of my go-to sites because I am a hacker.

Bayesian reasoning is actually "given the Prior X, what is the likelihood that Y is true" ?

What you are referring to is the far more simplistic Boolean reasoning.

Sorry, you are right - I was lazy when I wrote that.

I should have stated it like this: given "engineer" in title AND posted on HN what is the likelihood that it refers to a Software Engineer.

> I hate to be that guy (...)

Still, it's good you are. It's not a discussion board, people talking about tangential issues are (IMO) one of the best things you can see on HN.

Also, I tend to think that 'software engineering' is the least engineering-like of all engineering disciplines.

Fortunately, like a good interface, it is immediately and clearly obvious what the function of the article is.

I think it's safe to say that any mechanical engineers that may have read this article were smart enough to realise that the target audience wasn't them.

True; your parent is just reacting to the pervasive habit software engineers seem to have, wherein they refer to themselves as if they are the only kind of engineers.

Which is particularly annoying if you think software developers shouldn't be called engineers.

>it is immediately and clearly obvious what the function of the article is.

Not really - I am a mechanical engineer (by degree, acoustical by practice) who took the title at it's word and tried to see if author was trying to share an insight that could be applied to engineering in general. "Line things up" and "Design the white space" is something I could see an author trying to apply across disciplines (not that they did, but again, I was taking the title for what it was and tried to get something out of it).

It's when I got to "Use designer fonts" that I realized it was yet another article where the author used the term 'engineer" to refer to "software engineer."

You could just as easily say it should be "Software Design Secrets for Engineers" right?

It should really be "Visual design secrets for software engineers."

It's kinda irksome how graphic designers try to own the word "design." Design is a vital part of all engineering, software or otherwise.

This feels like it could go on and on. These are not secrets either. And this is not for all software engineers, just for those who need to design web pages.

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