Making Fun of Engineers

[CHenry]

One of my good buddies is an electrical engineer and he is continually wowing me with things he knows AND can actually apply to everyday real life situations. Hes got common sense and without it, anyone, no matter how many degrees you have, will have a difficult time in life.
An engineer without common sense is about as effective as a surgeon with a bad case of the shakes.
The man I work for in an engineer, 15 years ago I trained him in what we do here at ODOT, Roadway Design...now hes my boss and still doesn't know WTF I do everyday.

 

[Rod Snell]

When I was an undergrad at the University of Washington, several of the junior and senior classes had math/physics/engineering numbers on them, with students from all three departments. We harassed the engineering students by asking for a show of hands at the beginning of the semester who was from what department. The engineers always asked why, and we told them we were estimating the curve: more engineers in the class, lower curve.

When much later I got to be a program manager, I got along with the harware and systems engineers well. However I soon learned some issues with software engineers:
1. Software projects are estimated 90% complete for 90% of the time.
2. Multiply any software estimate by 1.8 for cost and 3 for schedule.
3. When software gets behind schedule, adding more people slows it down more.
4. If a software genius demands to program in his favorite language that is not approved for the project, don't tell him no; just fire him immediately. None of the other software programmers will understand or be able to use anything he does.
5. Software engineers consider a module complete when the code is written. The System Engineer considers it complete when it actually runs in the object hardware. The Program Manager considers it complete when it is tested, documented, and deliverable to the customer.
6. Asking a software engineer why the code does not work, is months overdue, and is undocumented is futile. You won't understand the answer, and the problem is still there.

 

[WhiteyMacD]

1. Software projects are estimated 90% complete for 90% of the time.
2. Multiply any software estimate by 1.8 for cost and 3 for schedule.
3. When software gets behind schedule, adding more people slows it down more.
4. If a software genius demands to program in his favorite language that is not approved for the project, don't tell him no; just fire him immediately. None of the other software programmers will understand or be able to use anything he does.
5. Software engineers consider a module complete when the code is written. The System Engineer considers it complete when it actually runs in the object hardware. The Program Manager considers it complete when it is tested, documented, and deliverable to the customer.
6. Asking a software engineer why the code does not work, is months overdue, and is undocumented is futile. You won't understand the answer, and the problem is still there.

From both outside looking in, and inside looking out, I can confirm all these. I am, in essence a CSEE so sometimes I have to deal with the Software Engineer in me.

 

[RidgeHunter]

Old school engineers come can be divided into two groups. Scary smart w/common sense, and scary smart w/o common sense. Poopgiggle seems to hit the nail on the head in generalizing the new crop, most of them seem to just be goobers like me, and I'm in no way qualified to be an engineer (math is terrifying to me). My slacker, uneducated buddy works a retail job and most everybody there is a twenty-something with an engineering degree, and most of them still live at home. He is friends with most of them, how they graduated is beyond me. Why they don't get callbacks after interviews is not.

The following is true.

Somedudewholookslikeme and other dude informing engineer of problem: "Hey, we have 2 parts marked "A" and 2 parts marked "B". All of them measure out to size A specs."

Engineer "Just tell the guys to tag them to all be part "A", then they'll be correct."

Somedudewholookslikeme and other guys in the office: "LOLOLOLOLOL"

Engineer: *seriousface*

Somedudewholookslikeme: ".....but....the order calls for 2 of this size, and 2 of the other size. If you remark them, they'll still not have the correct parts when they receive the order."

Engineer: "But they'd all be correct. 4 "A" parts, all of them meet part "A" specs. No problem."

Somedudewholookslikeme: "Uhh...anyways...OK. I say it's unacceptable, what happens from here is up to you guys."

 

[CHenry]

Software Engineer

A man was crossing a road one day when a frog called out to him and said: "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess". He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket.

The frog spoke up again and said: "If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will stay with you for one week."
The man took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it to the pocket.
The frog then cried out: "If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I'll stay with you and do anything you want". Again the man took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket.
Finally, the frog asked: "What is the matter ? I've told you I'm a beautiful princess, that I'll stay with you for a week and do anything you want. Why won't you kiss me ?"
The man said, "Look I'm a software engineer. I don't have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog is cool."

 

[poopgiggle]

Programmers these days are pretty sad, but I think that's because it used to be a small cadre of supergeeks with a bizarre instinctive ability to do pointer arithmetic, but then there was money in it so every schmoe who wanted a new career bought Java for Dummies. (Computer security is the same way. If you've ever been to a SANS conference you know what I'm talking about)

Seriously, I've had people look at me like I'm a super ninja because I can debug and fix a C program with gdb, when Back In The Day that was just a skill programmers were expected to have.

 

[Larry Morgan]

Another math/CS student and I were talking the other day about how the TI-89 has made mechanical engineering students obsolete.

Fixed it for you. The TI-89 doesn't have a "real world" mode that takes into account the way things work in reality vs how they work in the textbook. When someone makes that, only THEN will engineers be obsolete.

 

[BIG_MIKE2005]

Engineers are no different thatn Doctors or Lawyers in that some of them are quacks and some are briliant and a whole spectrum of those in between.
I work with engineers everyday. Some of them I wonder how they find their way to work each day, and others are pretty smart.

Agreed. I'm a draftsman by job title, but since our company is so small I also do calculations in PVElite for our vessels. Now I dont claim to be super educated but I'm pretty good with Cad & our calculation program. But some of the clowns from the larger companies makes me wonder what the actual requirement is to be hired on as a engineer. I know they are making more money than me & have a degree that says they are a engineer, but good lord.

The newest craze that has basically stopped me from talking on the phone to other engineers is all the Indians, not like Native Americans though, LOL. These guys have tons of technical data knowledge but NO common sense or practical application knowledge.

I honestly think its to the point now that these larger companies are hiring guys with "engineering degrees" but then not putting them in the actual field they studied. Like for instance, they might have a chemical engineering degree but the bastards put them in structual checking ladder/platform drawings & they have no friggin clue what they are looking at & why what they want to do wont work in real world application. Needless to say its beyond frusterating.

 

[WhiteyMacD]

Programmers these days are pretty sad, but I think that's because it used to be a small cadre of supergeeks with a bizarre instinctive ability to do pointer arithmetic, but then there was money in it so every schmoe who wanted a new career bought Java for Dummies. (Computer security is the same way. If you've ever been to a SANS conference you know what I'm talking about)

Seriously, I've had people look at me like I'm a super ninja because I can debug and fix a C program with gdb, when Back In The Day that was just a skill programmers were expected to have.

This is because in school they are taught using 1, maybe 2 languages.. with very little background in how the code actually works. Then once they get into the real world, they find their "favorite" language and do nothing but that.

Here is a few things that have ruined programmers:

1.) Intellisense
2.) Auto-Debugging (if you dont actually have to look at whats not working, you never learn what was wrong)


And most importantly,...
3.) Diva Programmers (they think they know it all, and there way is the only way)

 

[poopgiggle]

This is because in school they are taught using 1, maybe 2 languages.. with very little background in how the code actually works. Then once they get into the real world, they find their "favorite" language and do nothing but that.

This is very true. All of TU's computer science classes are taught in Java, which is basically a language designed for bad programmers IMO. The guy who teaches AI taught the course in Common Lisp when I took it but I heard they finally made him quit doing that (which is a shame).

Here is a few things that have ruined programmers:

1.) Intellisense
2.) Auto-Debugging (if you dont actually have to look at whats not working, you never learn what was wrong)

What are these? emacs doesn't have them.

And most importantly,...
3.) Diva Programmers (they think they know it all, and there way is the only way)

Guilty, but only insofar as I have flat-out refused to use Java because it involved doing a bunch of pointless work.