Software developers that want to use the Engineer title are benefited by learning how Engineers in other disciplines operate.
E.g. "Bill of Materials" is used by Mechanical Engineering and has a specific meaning and use.
These vehicles are the first of many – made possible by the tireless effort of SpaceX engineers and technicians – and are designed to enable the core revolutionary capabilities of Starship
missed this earlier. dear @patio11 with a characteristically-excellent reported history of SPLC's advocacy to shut its enemies out of public commercial life
somehow nothing here surprised me but it's still breathtaking seeing the 2016-2022 behind-the-scenes laid bare
do read it
Had a good discussion with someone today about why the literature and overall vibes from Apollo era NASA feels so different compared to now.
Two things:
1. The average age of a NASA engineer during the Apollo era was 28
2. Most of them were first generation engineers who didn’t really have the engineering background
So you take a bunch of 21-32 year olds who grew up on a farm, and now you tell them we are going to do something nobody’s ever done before. It leads to things being as simplified as they need to be. There is enough duct-tape work that things actually get done.
Society has forced us into a evermore theoretical world where we have forgotten what it feels like to beat the puzzle pieces into place with a hammer.
This is why many of the textbooks from this time period are actually very pleasant to read through. They were often written by or for someone who had nothing but outside life experience, trying to understand it.
Our generation is taking Artemis back to the moon and also Mars in the same way this generation did. I think we have a lot to learn from how they did things, and I’m glad to see a return to this type of engineering.
I can’t help but think about how many projects I didn’t finish because I couldn’t do them well enough to my standards in my head, and I should have just wrapped the thing in duct-tape and crossed the finish line
@jessica_kirsh Absolutely!
Probably for later, but some resources I found recently that I wish I had/knew about earlier:
• https://t.co/5kKtJqYS6C
• https://t.co/SfpiNzD6vf
@jessica_kirsh Oh, again it depends on which focus you're looking at, but consider learning boolean logic. Seems simple on the surface, but the emergent properties are neat and directly aid in understanding gate logic and the almighty NAND.
@jessica_kirsh One lab was creating a very minimal but pipelined processor. I split up the functions into different files ('cause that's one way to organize code). The TA didn't like that they had to open multiple files to grade the lab, and later required assignments to be one huge file. 🫠
@jessica_kirsh Heh, in one class the Professor (one of the few useful ones at ASU, great class) said something like "We're all EE, so nobody here likes programming." I was thinking "well, I do..."
(978-0-12-088785-9)