Fencing.Net - Your Guide to Fencing & Fencing Equipment

jeff · 05-31-2006, 08:13 PM

I figured this piece by Guy Kawasaki would be fun to share:

The Top Ten Lies of Engineers
---------------------------------------------
After a several month hiatus, I would like to return to my top-ten lies series. So far, I've covered entrepreneurs and VCs, Today's topic is the top ten lies of engineers.

1. "We're about to go into beta testing." This is a meaningless statement because it doesn't matter when you go into beta testing--what matters is when you come out of beta testing. (The only hard and fast deadline for coming out of modern-day beta testing is "before you run out of money.")

In the good old days, "alpha" used to mean "all features are implemented though not necessarily working properly." "Beta" used to mean "there are no more repeatable bugs." Nowadays beta means "we've gone as long as possible past the shipping date that we promised our investors."

2. "I don't know anything thing about marketing.." This is a lie of false modesty. The engineer is thinking, in totality, "I don't know a thing about marketing, but how hard could it be compared to what I'm doing? I should run marketing and engineering. I just hope that the marketing the MBAs come up with is worthy of my code." However, don't worry too much about this lie because it self-corrects as the engineer misses deadline after deadline and comes to realize that he has bigger issues.

3. "I'll comment the code, so that the next person can understand what I did." This is a lie of good intentions. Really, the engineer did intend to comment the code but as the schedule slipped, priorities changed. The question put to management became: "Do you want me to comment the code or finish it sooner?" Guess what the answer was. Luckily, the lack of comments usually doesn't matter because the code is so crappy that a total rewrite is necessary in a year.

4. "Our architecture is scalable." This is the lie that I enjoy hearing the most. Typically, an engineer who has never shipped a product says this after creating a prototype in Visual BASIC. The whole conversation goes like this: "Google's architecture isn't as scalable as mine. They can support 25 million simultaneous searches. We will be able to easily handle a billion."

Luckily, in most cases, the adoption of the product is slower than the CEO's "conservative" forecast, so scalability never becomes an issue. Yeah, those clowns at Google, Yahoo, Oracle, Microsoft, Apple, and AOL don't know anything about scaling compared to the engineer...

5. "The code supports all the industry standards. " This is almost a truth but for a short omission: "This code supports all the industry standards that I agree with." The engineer has made a personal decision to ignore standards she doesn't like--for example, those promulgated by Microsoft. It's no big deal--customers will never know...

6. "We can do a Macintosh version right after we finish the Windows version; in fact, much of the Windows code can be re-used because of how we architected it. " The truth is that version 1.0 of any software is an experiment. It can be a magnificent experiment, but it's an experiment nonetheless. Thus, Windows version 1.0 is held together by duct-tape. The Macintosh version is a copy of the duct-taped Windows version written by an engineer who just finished college and got his first Macintosh a month ago. How hard could it be to learn to program for a different platform? C++ is C++, right?

7. "We have an effective bug reporting database and system." Of course, the assumption behind the design of the bug reporting database and system is that there are no bugs in the code, so there's not much to database and report. Generally speaking, if the largest number of documented bugs doesn't ever exceed 1,000, it means that the company isn't tracking bugs carefully.

8. "We can do this faster, cheaper, and better with an offshore programming team in India." Rank and file engineers usually don't tell this lie; it's the CTO who does. Somehow we've got it in our heads that every programmer in India is good, fast, and cheap, and every programmer in the United States is lousy, slow, and expensive. My theory is that for version 1.0 of a product, the maximum allowable distance between the engineers and marketers is thirty feet.

9. "Our beta sites loved the software." In twenty five years of working in technology, I've never heard a company report that its beta sites didn't like its software. There are three reasons for this: first, many beta sites are so honored to get pre-release software that they don't want say anything negative. Second, most beta sites haven't used the software very much. Third, most beta sites don't want to seem cruel by criticizing a company's new product. Doing so is as socially unacceptable as telling someone that his baby is ugly.

10. "This time we got it right." The scary thing about this lie is that the engineer really believes it. Again. The problem is that "this time" occurs over and over again. I have great faith in engineers and believe that in the long run, they do get it right. It's just that in the long run, we're all dead.

---

For the top 10 lies he wrote for Entrepreneurs and VCs, see

http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/01/...ten_lie_1.html

http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/01/...p_ten_lie.html

academe · 05-31-2006, 08:55 PM

Great post! Having worked many years ago in the software world, these ring so true. I remember all the promises made for an old Apple computer called Lisa and the software that was demonstrated to show how great it would be...all of the software was "almost ready"...most of it never launched...the Lisa, well it kind of did.

slowgraffiti515 · 06-01-2006, 12:42 AM

*gets confused and runs away*
thank god im in architecture. all im going to worry about is making things awesome and pretty...you silly engineers can make it all mathie and such.

Feltan · 06-01-2006, 01:11 AM

Jeff,

That post just about sums up my working life. Althugh the author forgot about "modular, reusable code."

Regards,
Feltan

parrythis · 06-01-2006, 10:44 AM

Quote:

Top Ten Lies of Engineers

How about:

"Of course these levies will hold. There isn't a hurricane out there that can damage them."

or

"Don't worry that the city is below sea-level. What could go wrong?"

(Truth be told, I am just assuming somebody said this.)

KD5MDK · 06-01-2006, 01:11 PM

I don't think anybody said the former about New Orleans. The levees were specifically designed to stand up to a Cat 3 storm. However, it appears they were hit with a Cat 2. Nonetheless, everybody official was quite aware a Cat 4 or 5 would be plenty capable of damaging them.

jBirch · 06-01-2006, 01:37 PM

My favourite two:

1) "We don't need a QA department. We'll have the engineers test their code."

2) "It worked on MY machine."

And my favourite put off line:

1) "We can't reproduce it in the lab, so we can't do anything about it".

James.

lochinvar · 06-02-2006, 01:58 PM

I notice with equal parts chagrin and amusement that more than a few of the lies are told not by the engineers but for the engineers--by managers, marketers, and salespeople.

Having been an engineer for many years--albeit not in software, thank God!--I simply cannot count the number of promises which have been made in my name by people who have absolutely no idea whether what they are promising is feasible or even possible.

Epee_Pox · 06-05-2006, 01:02 AM

Color me confused, but what do any of these things have to do with engineers?

These are things that computer programmers would say. An engineer is someone who designs structures, machines, and other tangible manifestations of applied physics. A computer programmer is someone who writes computer programs. Two different things, to my mind.

keropie · 06-05-2006, 01:53 AM

Think 'software engineer'

DHCJr · 06-05-2006, 01:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KD5MDK

I don't think anybody said the former about New Orleans. The levees were specifically designed to stand up to a Cat 3 storm. However, it appears they were hit with a Cat 2. Nonetheless, everybody official was quite aware a Cat 4 or 5 would be plenty capable of damaging them.

Which brings up another lie. A similar incident happened at a new music building at Long Beach State, it was designed to withstand certain stresses.

Both of these show another lie.

See it is right here in black and white on the drawings the architech drew.

That doesn't mean whoever built it didn't make some cost-saving changes.

jeff · 06-15-2006, 01:33 PM

The opening post mostly from a vendor perspective - here's one more from the corporate technology side:

Top problems we see in designing Enterprise systems

1. Fast and cheap beats thorough every time.
2. We can add security later (see #1)
3. The vendor will give us all the help we need because they want to make more sales and it is too expensive to train our people.
4. We can worry about the backups later (again, see #1)
5. The people responsible for implementing this can do it in their spare time since (pick a reason).
6. These things will administer themselves. Or the folks who do the Windows
systems can administer the Unix boxes. (Pick one or both).
7. But we built it exactly like the users said they needed it.
8. I'm the boss and if I tell the users they are going to use this new
system, they'll do it and like it. I don't care what they think.
9. The specific requirements for the system will evolve anyway, so it isn't worth while writing them down right now.
10. Our technical folks know what the users need.

civiltech · 06-16-2006, 02:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by slowgraffiti515

*gets confused and runs away*
thank god im in architecture. all im going to worry about is making things awesome and pretty...you silly engineers can make it all mathie and such.

Try and draw pretty stuff we can actually build.

lochinvar · 06-19-2006, 03:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by civiltech

Try and draw pretty stuff we can actually build.

Or better yet, ask us what's buildable and make that awesome and pretty.

jeff · 06-19-2006, 04:22 PM

Boy, are you guys dreamers!

Feltan · 06-19-2006, 05:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by slowgraffiti515

*gets confused and runs away*
thank god im in architecture. all im going to worry about is making things awesome and pretty...you silly engineers can make it all mathie and such.

Lucky you. The Tacoma Narrows bridge was awesome and pretty; I guess they forgot to make it all "mathie and such."

Regards,
Feltan

jeff · 06-19-2006, 08:36 PM

A remarkable story, that was. See http://www.enm.bris.ac.uk/research/n...coma.html#mpeg for a short sample of the film. Ooh, a dancing bridge!

jBirch · 06-19-2006, 08:46 PM

Quote:

10. Our technical folks know what the users need.

And the corrollary: The users know what the users need.

A couple of more, from experience (extends use-case "Fast and Cheap"):

1) Engineer: "We can't do that." Mgmt: "Figure it out". Engineer: "This is a horrible hack, but it works on my machine." Mgmt: "Great! We go into production tomorrow." Engineer: "Eep." Mgmt: "You weren't planning on going anywhere tonight/tomorrow/this weekend/ever?"

2) Mgmt: "What's wrong with an 8am meeting?"
3) We'll just modify this open source app...
4) Mgmt to client: "Sure, the app does that!" Mgmt to engineer: "Does the app do that?".
4a) Engineer: "No." Mgmt: "Oh, well it will have to. This X dollar deal depends on that". Engineer: "Eep."
4b) Engineer: "Do I get any of that commission?" Mgmt: "We'll order pizza."

Classic Software Engineering mistakes:

1) Design for performance first, then needs. (Newbies love to make this mistake)
2) Design a generic framework 'cause the requirements keep changing. (Again, newbies like making this one)
3) Unit testing gone mad.
4) Design paralysis. (Extends 2)
5) User prototypes shown to management without a lot of caveats. Like, big glaring "THIS IS A PROTOTYPE" stamped all over everything.
6) Software releases at 6pm.

James.

Fencergrl · 06-20-2006, 07:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeff

A remarkable story, that was. See http://www.enm.bris.ac.uk/research/n...coma.html#mpeg for a short sample of the film. Ooh, a dancing bridge!

Yikes! It looks like one of the bridges near my house! I didn't need to see that! http://www.geocities.com/big_bridges1/fraser2.jpg

Please return to your regular scheduled thread....

Feltan · 06-20-2006, 11:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fencergrl

Yikes! It looks like one of the bridges near my house! I didn't need to see that! http://www.geocities.com/big_bridges1/fraser2.jpg

Please return to your regular scheduled thread....

No worries Fencergrl, you aren't likely to see a Tacoma Narrows accident in the western world any time soon. Bridges today have built in dampening against natural harmonic frequencies; the "all mathie and such" stuff that keeps them from falling down despite how awesome and pretty they look.

Regards,
Felt