Article View: comp.lang.misc
Article #3681Re: Software "Engineers"
From: Nick Maclaren
Date: Sat, 27 Apr 1991 18:44
Date: Sat, 27 Apr 1991 18:44
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1539 bytes
>Let me just quote Henry Ford at you: "An engineer can design for ten cents >what any damn fool can do for a Dollar". Henry Ford had a good point, but there are other aspects of good engineering. When I started driving, a front-wheel blowout at motorway speeds (70 mph) was usually followed by the car somersaulting and often by the death of the driver and all passengers. Recently, I had one of them and the car remained so steady that I disbelieved my senses and thought that it must be a rear wheel. I enquired and understand that this is due to careful design of the steering geometry and (particularly) the wheel shape. When you use a well-engineered product, you don't notice its design; it just does what you want it to do. When things go badly wrong, it fails gracefully and avoids fatal side-effects. How many well-engineered items of software do you know about? Nick Maclaren University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory nmm@cl.cam.ac.uk
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arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!uunet!mcsun!ukc!warwick!cam-cl!newsReferences:
<3844@ssc-bee.ssc-vax.UUCP> <3056@cirrusl.UUCP> <1136@tetrauk.UUCP> <1652@inset.UUCP> <1991Apr26.015053.15858@tkou02.enet.dec.com>Show Full Headers
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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!uunet!mcsun!ukc!warwick!cam-cl!news From: nmm@cl.cam.ac.uk (Nick Maclaren) Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc,comp.object Subject: Re: Software "Engineers" Message-ID: <1991Apr27.184424.7019@cl.cam.ac.uk> Date: 27 Apr 91 18:44:24 GMT References: <3844@ssc-bee.ssc-vax.UUCP> <3056@cirrusl.UUCP> <1136@tetrauk.UUCP> <1652@inset.UUCP> <1991Apr26.015053.15858@tkou02.enet.dec.com> Reply-To: nmm@cl.cam.ac.uk (Nick Maclaren) Organization: U of Cambridge Comp Lab, UK Lines: 21