Comment by Frost1x | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Frost1x | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

>It's tough because that basically runs counter to the Spirit of an Engineer, which is just to imagine the grandest well-thought-out + organized thing and march toward creating it.

I'm not sure if Spirit of an Engineer is a book, essay, or some prior set of principles I'm unaware of but if it's not (and even if it is), I tend to disagree here.

The spirit of of an engineer, in my opinion, is to solve problems and problems for people--that's what I and most engineers I've spoken with have been drawn to (ignoring those purely seeking a high paying profession here since were talking about "spirit"). When I was youthful I sought out technical complexity and grandiose solutions (I admittedly still admire it when it's done correctly). None the less, to me, most of it is wasteful and at the end of the day I want to build the most useful solution for people to make their lives easier.

Some problems require high complexity and glass cathedrals in terms of technical solutions, most really don't, at least most of the problems I've been exposed to.

Actual engineers generally do try to solve problems for people. But the engineers understanding of the people that they are solving it for is generally rather flawed. And therefore their solutions frequently are difficult for the intended users for reasons that the engineer can't see.

And yes, engineers really do err on the side of designing for future problems and future users that often will never exist. This effect is worst on a rewrite of a system - look up the "second system effect". We tend to only truly get pragmatic tradeoffs the third and later times.

Maybe “spirit of an engineer” could be better phrased as “visionary mindset”. Lots of engineers I’ve worked with imagine potential problems and treat them as requirements to solve even though the problem may never actually materialize.

Figuring out which problems to solve before they happen and ignoring the ones that probably won't happen is the cosmic dance of software development. The Serenity Prayer states "... accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference." Except change "cannot"/"can" to "don't need to at least not yet"/"need to now because it's about to be an issue!".

Make a bare bones version and see if it sticks, and go from there. Both the Progressive Enhancement philosophy and the Lean Startup methodology demand the minimal before building further. Ex: Will anyone click this survey link? Who knows but you'll learn real quick if you offer them $50. If they still don't, then it probably ain't gonna get clicked ever. If they do, then you found at least _something_ viable.

I'm not sure if Spirit of an Engineer is a book, essay, or some prior set of principles I'm unaware of

Good idea, you are welcome to help me hone my later chapters. For me the engineering spirit - especially in software - is being a creator/builder. At the core, someone who takes the Legos in front of them and creates with those pieces.

A couple people took my "grandest" comment as a nod toward scale/size/narcissism, which is reasonable, and I meant it more in terms of total architectural completeness - i.e. a system perfectly fulfilling all the requirements that necessitated its creation. A blade of grass is not "grand" in the primary sense, but it still is grand + magnificent by its own perfection in design.

It's always a balance. You need some structure to avoid spaghetti, maybe a bit more to allow for plausible extensibility (microscopic pre-abstraction) but not too much you're adding fat.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com