Engineering Principles

My personal engineering principles: (I'm jotting this down and will expand upon
this in further detail at a future point in time). The following engineering pri
nciples apply to both BridgeBuilding? and SoftwareDevelopment and the following
ProfessionalPrinciples? are the key difference between a SoftwareEngineer and a
SoftwareProgrammer.
Testability
Maintainablity
Integrity
External integration is well defined
Ethics
Management
-TimTwelves
Testability - It is designed to have a repeatable test that can be performed to
ensure that it is as expected. With bridge building, you could test the conceret
e, the steel, expansion and contraction in hot weather, etc.
Maintainability - It is designed to last. A bridge should last twenty years with
a designed way to maintain the bridge or safely widen the bridge if so desired.
Integrity - It is designed to have structural integrity. A bridge will not just
break in half. In memory state must not just become corrupt.
External integration - It is designed to have a particular well defined way to i
ntegrate with its environment without any confusion. A bridge takes cars. There
is a sign that says the maximum tonnage and height of the bridge - no confusion.
Ethics - Act primarily in the best interests of (a) the above principles, (b) th
e users, and (c) the client. If the bridge is going to break and kill people, yo
u cannot sign off on the construction.
Management - An engineer is proactively involved in the management of various re
sponsibilities because the ultimate responsibility rests on the engineer. An eng
ineer does not sit on the side listening to builders about bridge building. An e
ngineer is actively involved in listening to builders and will let them do their
speciality but is proactive in coordinating the various specialists towards the
ultimate goal. Bridge building is typically managed by civil engineers - there
are concrete and steel specialists but they are typically coordinated at a desig
n level by the engineer, not by business.
Do not confuse engineering with architecture. An architect may design something
without regard to engineering. It becomes the engineers job to build it accordin
g to engineering principles. In the context of software development, you could a
rgue that the SoftwareDevelopmentLifeCycle is part of the responsibility of the
management princple of a software engineer but it is certainly not the entire ro
le of the engineer's management responsibility.
-TimTwelves
I'm not sure about the title is right for these points, these seem to me to be a
subset of the ScientificMethod. I consider Engineering to be the application of
the scientific method, so to me Engineering Principles would be the scientific
theories that underpin the engineering field in question. -- MartinSpamer.
CategoryEngineering
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