tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34203016.post7138764078756824793..comments2024-01-22T16:54:30.446-08:00Comments on Richard Kulisz: Design Principles vs Engineering "Principles"Richard Kuliszhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05450367878517586463noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34203016.post-84104544555824766492015-09-23T12:23:28.660-07:002015-09-23T12:23:28.660-07:00Oh Kevin, you say the funniest things. Haven't...Oh Kevin, you say the funniest things. Haven't you learned by now that you are an extremely atypical engineer and that most engineers are right-wing authoritarian nazi borg robots? It's true!<br /><br />You say they could stand to learn there are higher order phenomena above the merely observable? BLASPHEMY! There are no such things!<br /><br />Human bodies are merely biomechanical machines operating deterministically as proven empirically. Minds are merely electrical impulses, so are emotions and beliefs and subjective experience! And mathematics is merely convention.<br /><br />The only higher order phenomenon is God! YOU ARE BLASPHEMING AGAINST GOD!<br /><br />As for your talk of needs, I will answer the following way:<br /><br />Blackadder: And as your Highness can see, the barbican is thicker to withstand more pikemen assaulting the front gate.<br /><br />King Charles: Good, good. And the walls have those crenelations?<br /><br />Blackadder: Yes sire, with the little fleur-de-lys on top.<br /><br />King Charles: Excellent, it'll be one more variety of castle and exactly what we need right now.<br /><br />Courtier: But sire, none of our castles can withstand the new cannons!<br /><br />King Charles: Silence! The princess NEEDS her pink castle.Richard Kuliszhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05450367878517586463noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34203016.post-72393563221869374642015-09-23T09:17:49.826-07:002015-09-23T09:17:49.826-07:00I can see how frustrating it is for a designer to ...I can see how frustrating it is for a designer to be told that what they are doing is nothing. It's like a poet being told that love is nothing more than a series of biochemical reactions. I think engineers in general could benefit from learning that there are higher orders above observable phenomena. <br /><br />However saying that engineers don't care if they write spaghetti code is like saying designers build fantabulous winged butterfly suits and don't care that they will send their wearers plummeting towards the ground. I suppose I could rant for a few pages like you did about their supposed defects, but I'll give designers the benefit of the doubt.<br /><br />Regarding higher order ideas like "the system is homoiconic": it has to be noted that at some point, for an actual system to exist, it must be rendered into logical, concrete objects. That's where engineers excel. You've described Unix as a ball of spaghetti and I could understand that it might seem that way to you. I can speak from experience and say that every variant you see there is based on a real world need. Computers only function through precise logic at every level, and when you come to understand them in detail all the variations make sense. You actually start to learn about the material world and the limits of how we're able to interact with it.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04893539731623941677noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34203016.post-14085544717410991522015-09-22T05:24:53.502-07:002015-09-22T05:24:53.502-07:00principle
ˈprɪnsɪp(ə)l/Submit
noun
1.
a fundamenta...principle<br />ˈprɪnsɪp(ə)l/Submit<br />noun<br />1.<br />a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behaviour or for a chain of reasoning.<br />"the basic principles of justice"<br />synonyms: truth, proposition, concept, idea, theory, postulate; More<br />2.<br />a general scientific theorem or law that has numerous special applications across a wide field.<br /><br />Looks like both synthetic and analytic definitions are in the dictionary. So engineers are "within spec" to use this word.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34203016.post-17375149979399922902012-05-06T14:24:25.134-07:002012-05-06T14:24:25.134-07:00I have rarely seen such imbecility as I have seen ...I have rarely seen such imbecility as I have seen in this post. Engineers - as in proper engineers, not the half-breeds of the worst characteristics of designers and engineers that you see in the software industry - make things that actually work. If you left the development of buildings solely to designers, they'd fall over at the slightest breeze and feel like an icebox in the middle of summer. Likewise, if you left the development of cars solely to designers, they'd crumple like tin foil, run like horse carriages and drink fuel like a supertanker.<br /><br />I could go on with the metaphors, but I think I'll make a more pertinent comment: Your hostility betrays your ignorance and your stupidity. It is not amusing, nor is it intelligent. It simply demonstrates the sort of crude thinking which suggests that you should be put over in the "special" section of the room, with a cone-shaped hat with a rather prominent "D" on it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34203016.post-75167819338421644362011-08-01T07:06:59.312-07:002011-08-01T07:06:59.312-07:00Like Wittgenstein, you have solved all problems on...Like Wittgenstein, you have solved all problems on Philosophy. Note the irony.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34203016.post-68441712304513001552011-07-01T09:34:25.786-07:002011-07-01T09:34:25.786-07:00Are you really giving up on the research programme...Are you really giving up on the research programme of Total Reality Control?<br /><br />And giving up on Dyson spheres?<br /><br />And weeding out autistics, narcissists and psychopaths from the population?<br /><br />And artificial vat meat? And brain racks?<br /><br /><br />You're right that engineers do valuable things. I personally aim to do revolutionary things.<br /><br /><br />I agree with you that designers should be god-kings. :D<br /><br />My practical suggestion is that each designer should be complemented by a number of researchers who can then serve as a buffer for the engineers. <br /><br />Both designers and researchers share the same cognitive traits, they just trust different faculties more. So they can understand each other, they just think differently.<br /><br />For reasons I don't understand, among my personal contacts I have many more times as many AN-syns as an-SYNs. This disparity should be taken into account.<br /><br /><br />You may be interested in reading my <a href="http://richardkulisz.blogspot.com/2011/02/explaining-software-systems-design-to.html" rel="nofollow">explaining software systems design to an industrial designer</a>. Which makes software systems intrinsically more challenging than industrial systems. Consider that Apple's industrial design aesthetic can be summed up as: Braun. Industrial design may be limited enough to be memorizable by engineers. I don't see that happening for software design.<br /><br />I don't see anyone as having mastered software design. Not even me, even though I've reached milestones others couldn't dream of. Mastery would require strategies against every systemantic.<br /><br /><br />So yes, I think your suggestion might work, maybe, for industrial design. I don't have any hope of it working for software design until an entirely new business model becomes a runaway success. But I don't think even that would have a major impact on the problem. This is essentially a political problem.<br /><br />The political problem can be stated thus. We systems designers are too few to have achieved the critical mass to do ANY OF:<br /><br />* identifying children with the talent<br />* tracking children with the talent<br />* producing educational material for children with the talent<br />* differentiating themselves in the public's mind from other creatives, from engineers, from academics<br />* educating those with the talent through adolescence<br />* educating them through young adulthood<br />* dragging the Art into modernity by anti-specializing<br />* mastering the Art to its maximum potential<br />* researching the Art so it can be taught systematically<br />* support our young economically, financially and politically while they incubate<br />* produce standards to determine each other's competence<br />* push those standards on to hostile and clueless employers<br /><br /><br />Finally, you may be interested more in synthesis. I now think it's a 2-variable 3-value faculty. That's 3^2 combinations. I haven't identified them all.Richard Kuliszhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05450367878517586463noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34203016.post-57860652048243240242011-07-01T07:31:09.959-07:002011-07-01T07:31:09.959-07:00First let me say that, generally, you make some in...First let me say that, generally, you make some interesting analysis and syntheses. They are great starting points for thinking and discussion.<br /><br />Second, you have mentioned several of the things I've put effort in rejecting about engineering. There is something very broken at the very fundamentals of how engineering is taught that makes it broken. Noise in, noise out.<br /><br />Finally, and fortunately, the world (kind of) works *because* understandable systems aren't a requisite for life. The Moon doesn't care if we understand gravity. It goes around Earth modifying tides anyway. You don't need to understand how the brain works in order to think and you don't have to know the details about transforming an apple into aliment but you survive when you eat.<br /><br />My point is that engineers use limited knowledge to do real things that are valuable even if they suck.<br /><br />And by no means I'm justifying the crappy shit they usually do.<br /><br />One thing that can help to push things forward is to put industrial designers at the top of companies.<br /><br />We need more industrial designers as co-founders. People that can make (design) experiences instead of stuff.sebastianhttp://sebastianconcept.comnoreply@blogger.com