Re:"Normal" engineers are the key to great teams
by hinkley on Friday March 14, 2025 @02:09PM
(#43365415)
> engineering is all about efficiency
See, that’s a problem.
Engineering is all about effectiveness. Not efficiency.
Focus is great for slamming out a bunch of code that everybody else hates and has to tiptoe around you about because focus also made you so goddamned proud of your monster. Slow down and check the signposts before following your good intentions all the way to the end.
Re:"Normal" engineers are the key to great teams
by logsr on Friday March 14, 2025 @04:16PM
(#43366800)
effectiveness, professionally, is creating value for your clients and employers. the ratio of value to cost is how efficient you are as an engineer. it is all efficiency.
this is crucial. from my own productivity I know that I can function at 1X or 10X depending on my focus.
being a great engineer requires practice most of all, and the consistency of focus during that practice will impact its value.
in my experience, engineering is all about efficiency, and as i have developed over time the scope of factors i take into account when calculating the efficiency of something has increased. in the beginning i only looked at the technical details of the implementation, and then over time that expanded to considering maintainability, team co-ordination, business objectives, etc.
the potential scope here is unlimited. when you start, just making something compile takes all of your focus, but over time as programming becomes reflexive you are able to expand the factors you take into account far beyond the immediate code, and it seems trivial by comparison.