As a developer, my most important tools are a pen and a notebook

Re:As a developer, my most important tools are a pen and a n... by noosphr on Wednesday May 28, 2025 @11:18AM (#44116940)

What you're talking about is software machining, not software engineering.

The difference between the blue collar machinist and the white collar engineer is exactly this view of the machines they use.

For an engineer a machine - be in a slide rule, calculator or super computer - is just a tool. You're not doing engineering because you're using the tool. You're doing engineering because you're thinking and the tool helps you think a bit faster.

For a machinist the machine is the job. You can't make widgets if you don't have a machine to make them on. Thinking about widgets is pointless because they don't get made by thinking.

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Re:As a developer, my most important tools are a pen and a n... by mediaman on Wednesday May 28, 2025 @01:42PM (#44118627)

That’s funny, because if you go into any machine shop you’ll find machinists writing things down in notebooks (and probably cursing engineers who never set foot in the shop).

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Re:As a developer, my most important tools are a pen and a n... by noosphr on Wednesday May 28, 2025 @07:59PM (#44121704)

Those are job shops, there are no old school production lines left in the US. Here's what they used to look like from a century ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa0PAg7FfMk&t=350s

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Re:As a developer, my most important tools are a pen and a n... by mediaman on Saturday May 31, 2025 @07:28PM (#44147645)

There are no more “old school” production lines left? I’m not sure what you mean; obviously there are a lot of production lines in the US, including the manufacturing of engine blocks as shown here.

Do you mean that they use robots today and therefore aren’t “old school”? That’s true in most industrialized economies.

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