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Unread 14-11-2003, 02:18
Mike Soukup's Avatar
Mike Soukup Mike Soukup is offline
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Quote:
Originally posted by EStokely
Lastly. I hope engineering programs are rigorous and hard. I feel the same way about pre-med, pre-law...etc...
Why? because I want really good engineers and doctors and lawyers...
I would be hard pressed to accept an argument that a prospective engineer who couldn't handle college has managed to teach themselves enough to fix/design my widget machine.
That said...programming may be an exception. There is a difference between engineering a system from the ground up and writing applications.
I don't mean this as an attack, but it's obvious from your post that you do a lot of work in the 'real' world and do not have much of an idea how much work goes into a software project. It sounds like you're trivializing Computer Science & Comptuer Engineering and removing them from the realm of engineering, quite a common reaction from those who don't know much about software projects.

Software systems are every bit as complex as mechanical systems and require as much knowledge & skill to engineer as any mechanical system. Think about how complex some of the giant software systems are. Cellular networks (had to use it) for example are made up of a dozen or more boxes (computers) passing messages back & forth. Each box is running dozens of processes (applications), most of which are talking to each other. Each application consists of hundreds of functions that have to perform tasks based on inputs from the other functions. Sound like a complex system that must be carefully & skillfully engineered from the ground up, or is it just a bunch of applications?

Sorry to take the thread off-topic, but I must always respond to people when they trivialize software engineering.

Now back to the original question. FIRST gives a great perspective of engineering: unrealistic deadlines, not enough resources, problems that can be solved in countless ways with the freedom to choose the best method, tremendous competition from your peers, plus a lot more I can't think of now. FIRST is an entire engineering project shrunk into 6 short, stressful, tiring, and rewarding weeks.

Mike
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