RE: Request to remove Information
> From: Mike McCarty [mailto:mike.mccarty@sbcglobal.net]
> Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2005 2:58 PM
<...>
> How about the prejudice that software engineers are only good
> for writing programs, while hardware engineers can design
> both hardware *and* software?
It just goes to show that knowledge may be finite, but ignorance is
limitless. Hardware engineers like me can and do write software, it's
just crude, inefficient, subject to abuse and not suitable for general
distribution. It's good enough to test my own hardware, but a software
engineer can do it in a third the time, so why bother? Similarly, I'm
sure most software engineers can design hardware, but probably not
something you would want to run through a production line and support in
the field.
I don't know where the idea came about that hardware engineers can write
better embedded systems. For a software engineer to do a good job on an
embedded project, they have to understand hardware, but that's very
different from being able to do a manufacturable design. Similarly, a
good hardware engineer has to know enough about software to
intelligently talk to the software engineer, but that does not imply
they could write the system. In the good situations, both engineers
understand enough about each other's area that they can ask probing
questions from a different viewpoint and come up with a better system
design than either could have alone.
I suspect that design managers who have the misguided notion you brought
up have never worked with a real software engineer. This is not rocket
science. If your pipes are leaking, don't call a carpenter.
--
Seth Goodman
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