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Comment by hwillis | Hacker News Reader

> My brother is an extremely skilled machinist, the sort who could build machine tools if he had the resources.

Machine tools are not designed by extremely skilled machinists, they are designed by engineers. Machinists do not know how frames deflect or resonant modes or overconstraint or the other things that are critical in machine tool design. Machine tools are inherently dynamic systems where moving cutters cause feedback into the system. Being able to make something accurate under static conditions is very different.

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I am an engineer, making physical stuff. I sometimes design things as well, I generally don't make it unless it is simple or the machinists are busy.

When they make it, they often have questions that turn into suggestions. I would say that any engineer that does not listen to their machinist is a bad one.

> Machine tools are not designed by extremely skilled machinists

But they're built by extremely skilled machinists. I've practiced engineering for decades but I wouldn't even want to be in the same room as any object I've personally made being spun up the first time.

Not really. Mostly they are built by machines. Extremely skilled machinists work in research or niche development, where they can solve new problems. Very skilled operators can tram a machine better, or eke out more repeatable clamping, and make slightly more accuracy out of an established process.

Their time is much better spent creating new processes or making low-run jigs and things.

Skilled machinists are very well aware of deflection and resonance. Operating a machine tool is not static in the slightest.

The average software engineer is working on A to B plumbing code to confer more privacy violating javascript onto webpages, not novel implementations of algorithms at scale.

Likewise the average machinist is not "skilled" in the way that most here are implying.

I can tell when a dirt bike is running rough, but that doesn't mean I can design the helmholtz resonator in the exhaust. That difference is engineering.

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