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From: dcline@netcom.com (David Cline)
Subject: Re: Software Engineering Doesn't Exist [was: C Hackers]
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Date: Wed, 9 Aug 1995 04:20:12 GMT
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Scott Wheeler <scottw@bmtech.demon.co.uk> writes:

>In Article <nntpuserDCwMq5.685@netcom.com> Scott A. Whitmire writes:
>>...The [engineering] discipline came about during the early 1800s when 
>>briges started falling out from under trains. 

>Um, your timing is a little out, and probably on the wrong continent. 
>There were no public trains in the early 1800s - the Stockton to 
>Darlington opened in 1825 and steam trains took a few years to reach 
>the colonies. However the physics and mathematics of bridges was 
>studied well before then, including some work by Newton (who built the 
>notorious wooden "Mathematical Bridge" at Cambridge, of which it is 
>said that during maintenance in the 1960's no-one could work out how to 
>put it back together without using some pegs). I am unsure of 
>systematic work before then, but it might be interesting to check 
>Vitruvius. Telford (builder of the Iron Bridge, in the late 18C) and 
>Brunel (Clifton suspension bridge, mid 19C) could also be interesting, 
>but I suspect proper analysis was only necessary for the latter.

While admitting that there is some dispute over the precise fraction,
Petroski (in To Engineer Is Human) quotes a figure of one in four for
the failure rate of 19th century iron railway bridges.

-- 
Dave Cline                                 dcline@netcom.com
Spring Valley Software
