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From: aland@servio.slc.com (Alan Darlington)
Subject: Re: Engineering Exact Science? [was Re: Theory and Practice ...
Message-ID: <1995Jul13.184513.18395@slc.com>
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Date: Thu, 13 Jul 1995 18:45:13 GMT
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Robert Veklotz <t3059@BWC01.NFUEL.COM> writes:
> David Darlinton writes:
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> > To see how traditional engineers do on leading edge projects,
> > consider the Alaskan pipeline (years late and a factor of 10
> > over budget), nuclear power plants, space shuttle, etc.  These
> > are much more equivalent to the daily work of software
> > engineers, and tend to show the same lack of exactness.  :-(
> 
> In defense of traditional engineers, nowhere is mentioned the influence
> of government regulation into the engineering process. Imagine completing
> the design of a nuclear power plant and, into construction, the
> government requires two additional flatulence regulators on your off-gas.
> It's back to the design process. Repeat this n times and you understand
> where a lot of inexactness comes from. Regulations cause projects to
> get spread out for 15 years or more. It becomes impossible to keep
> engineering teams together, leading to more error and cost.

Of course traditional engineers have this kind of problem, but if the
government doesn't shoot you in the foot, your company will usually
do it by itself.  For example, any company can keep an engineering
team together if it is willing to accept the costs (not just financial,
but also a good work environment, adequate tools, good management,
etc.)

In defense of the government, I read that one of the Alaskan pipeline
designers later admitted that if it had been build as originally
designed, it would have been a disaster.  Big business functions a lot
like government (which is perhaps why IBM has so many problems... :-).

On the other hand, after the Tacoma Narrows bridge (Galloping Gertie)
collapsed, the state originally planned to rebuild an exact duplicate.
So who do you trust?  Life is crazy.  :-)

  -- Alan

