11 Apr
2006
11 Apr
'06
3:53 p.m.
der Mouse wrote:
I do and I don't.
Certainly you two are right in that CPU power is a tool, useful for
many purposes, and only a stupid engineer disdains a useful tool
without good reason.
But on the other hand, Tony is also right in that CPU crunch is no
substitute for intelligent thought. All the computrons in the world
won't help someone who can't think coherently about how to use them.
I didn't claim otherwise. Like I said, there have always been
dunderheads. More CPU power will just give them the ability to make
mistakes faster.
As an engineer with more than twenty years of
experience, I found
what you said insulting and misinformed.
I agree. As I read it, Tony was - rightly - sneering at the
kind of intellectual
laziness that doesn't bother thinking about problems and assumes that
they can be hit with enough CPU cycles, and if not, why, then the
hardware must be insufficient. There's a world of difference between
that and recognizing when using a stupid algorithm instead of a smart
algorithm is the right answer because there are enough spare cycles
available to support the resulting gain in, say, programmer time, which
is the sort of thing I see you as - again, rightly - supporting.
But that isn't what Tony said; he said:
Yes, back when engineers actually thought about things
and didn't
attempt to 'solve' problems by throwing computing power at them.
-tony
That says that engineers today don't solve probems anymore; he didn't
say that he detests engineers who are bad.
To inject a little levity, someone told me this one a number of years ago:
There are two styles of design: correct by construction, or construct by
correction.
It is cute, but in real life engineering is a combination of both. Even
in the old days, things were prototyped, and designs didn't launch from
draftsman hand to production.