🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <C0Cv53.CBC@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <ewright.726192136@convex.convex.com> ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright) writes:
>>>> Most engineering *is* paperwork, or workstation work today. Otherwise
>>>> it's just tinkering on a wing and a prayer. You have to bend metal to
>>>> *test* your engineering, but bending metal *isn't* engineering. It's
>>>> fabrication done by tradesmen.
>>
>>Wait a minute, I never wrote that! That was Gary Coffman!

Yeah, and damn pretty too isn't it?

>Gary's comments (the >>> above) are squarely in the NASA mold:  if you
>do it right on paper, it will work the first time (although of course
>you test it just in case).  Unfortunately, the real world doesn't work
>that way, as witness any number of NASA projects that *didn't* work
>the first time.  Real-world development involves *finding out* what
>works and what doesn't... and you cannot do that on paper.  You have
>to test things *during* the engineering, not just afterward.

I don't know how you read such things into my statements, must be
the big lies of Wright that fool you. Of course you test as you go.
Of course you change the design when you find problems. *And* of
course you *plan* for that in your developmental budgeting and
scheduling. If you don't and instead operate with a "success"
orientation that everything is going to work just like you planned
it and there aren't going to be any delays or extra expenses, *then*
you'll fail more often than not to meet spec, budget, or schedule.
Engineers still don't bend metal though. Most of them don't know the 
right end of a hammer to grasp. That's what you've got skilled tradesmen
on the payroll for.

Gary

-- 
Gary Coffman KE4ZV          |    You make it,     | gatech!wa4mei!ke4zv!gary
Destructive Testing Systems |    we break it.     | uunet!rsiatl!ke4zv!gary
534 Shannon Way             |    Guaranteed!      | emory!kd4nc!ke4zv!gary      
Lawrenceville, GA 30244     |                     | emory!ke4zv!gary@gatech.edu