Ask HN: Have you ever over-engineered something? Why? - rayraegah
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envolt
Yes, a lot. I feel that I'm doing it more often now. I'm 5-year exp. now, and
the unexpected expectation of ensuring that it should be self-sustainable in
the future is making me spend more time in even small thing, which is
definitely over-engineering.

Often meeting goes like,

Person 1 - this should do it

P2 - But if we do that, that will also cover that2 in future

P1, P3 - Make sense, let's do it.

P4 - We should also do that3.

All - Lets put up our points on a Doc, and discuss it again tomorrow. We
shouldn't build something which we have to revisit in the future, it will be a
waste of time otherwise.

All agree, adjourned.

(P1 to Pn are interchangeable)

~~~
envolt
I also feel that spending a lot of time reading Uber/Netflix blogs (or similar
stuff) is not what I should do, for an hour, first thing in the morning.

------
ptrenko
All my life. Sigh. Engineers often don't have skin in the game in the way an
entrepreneur or a business owner does.

I think when we are shielded from harsh realities of the market. We build
something we want and consider cool. Not something that is useful.

~~~
airbreather
Yeah, but when you let the bean counters make engineering decisions it is all
about cost and nothing about value.

So when you are actually engineering tangible real world items (eg cars and
buildings) that have substantial embodied energy "over engineering" can
sometimes actually mean making something of long term quality and value that
lasts past fashion and trend.

------
rolph
yes my boss believed it was a divine creation, and i jumped ship as soon as
that started being talked about

