Quote:
Originally Posted by EricH
All. The. Time. It's really awkward when you forget to account for the thickness of a structural member in design and have to account for it in hardware with a sawzall. Been there, done that. Ever since, when working that sort of project, it's been "Did I account for ALL of the intermediate stuff when making this length?"
The other factor, of course, is that it's quite possible to mess up numbers with the mechanical drawings. (Trust me--even with a good drawing, sometimes the only thing saving your bacon is some really good measuring to interpret the drawing.) By saying that X needs Y distance of clearance, they are taking an aspect of the drawings that may or may not be clear to the average EE/programmer and saying "Pay attention to this. You need to take this into consideration. The drawings are less idiot-resistant than we'd like to be able to make them."
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I guess I put things too strongly. Sure, people are fallible but maybe we would be better off letting them fail occasionally. Sometimes airports have moving walkways with a speakers at the end to announce that you should get off. Most of the time it's an annoyance. Too often I read through the documenation and feel like I'm listening to one of those speakers.
I think it's appropriate that a person would have to look ahead and see where they have to start walking again. And I think it's appropriate that people would have to determine clearances themselves. I say this as a person who has started daydreaming on one of those walkways and noticed the end by a foot coming out from under me. (It's actually kind of amusing; I recommend trying it sometime.)
