From: Corey Lawson Date: 2005-08-21T05:38:16+09:00 Subject: Re: Python vs Ruby! Well, in "hardware engineering", the first thing is probably a prototype or proof-of-concept. It's a hack. Some of them can be quite ugly (sheet steel, bar stock, etc) and inelegant. But once the idea is seen to work (or be workable), then things start to be optimized a little bit, because now the engineers start figuring out what needs to be done to make X thousand at Y price point. Even during the production run, changes get made to the design (supply V's price changes, quality of supply W isn't as good, etc), product is currently too expensive so make it cheaper, etc... Why should we think that software "engineering" should be perfect from the getgo, when other production engineering disciplines clearly are not so in the Real World (i.e, the world where things have to get done, out the door, and just more or less work)? About the only engineering disciplines that seem to need to be Right at the getgo are civil, aeronautical and biomedical engineering. There tend to be people's lives (or they're singular entities...) on the line in those disciplines, which skews the fudge factor greatly. -cl On 8/20/05, Chris Game wrote: > James Britt wrote: > > > ...typically the goal is to get code to run, and run right, and > > then refactor to beauty. > > Is that what they teach in schools these days? What happened to > software engineering? > > -- > Chris Game > > "It's not a good idea to look too hard at the words, they > resent it." -- T. Pratchet, "Mort". > >