

Understanding Engineers - adamc
http://fishbowl.pastiche.org/2007/07/17/understanding_engineers_feasibility/

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tdavis
_So there is no necessary relation between a task being trivial, and how long
it takes._

I wish more non-engineers could grasp this. It's so annoying when people say,
"It's not done yet? But you said it would be a trivial feature to add!" I am
then forced to explain all that means is I know _how_ to add it and can
visualize the general diagram in my head, but since I am not regurgitating the
precise implementation from memory it isn't merely a matter of rote data
entry.

This may be a problem caused partially by us, too; I don't care about
implementation time because the implementation is the trivial part; it'll be
done whenever it's done and I'm not really bothered by that since the problem
itself is already solved. Hell, most of the time I don't even have an interest
in fully implementing a solution to a problem I've already mentally solved.

I guess I should note this doesn't apply much for me at the moment seeing as
how I co-own a company, but it's an annoyance when it comes to dealing with
clients.

~~~
jkkramer
If you use a word in a way that most people don't, how can you be surprised
when they misunderstand you?

I use "straightforward" to describe trivial problems, when I can see the
implementation path clearly. "Trivial" implies easy and quick to most people.
It's not hard for them to grasp, you just have to communicate more clearly.

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prpon
Reminds me of Richard Feynman. "mathematicians designate any theorem as
"trivial" once a proof has been obtained--no matter how difficult the theorem
was to prove in the first place. There are therefore exactly two types of true
mathematical propositions: trivial ones, and those which have not yet been
proven. "

<http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Trivial.html>

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jimfl
There's trivial to implement, then there's trivial to implement in our product
without breaking everything else.

Also, they missed a category: Stupid. As in: I could do that, but it would be
Stupid.

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ShabbyDoo
My wife is annoyed by my reluctance to speak in absolute terms. Expressing an
estimate of likelihood seems much more precise to me than rounding a
probability to "always" or "never."

~~~
timr
Just integrate over longer periods of time: _"yes dear, that always happens --
just so long as we live forever."_ ;-)

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blogimus
Title is incomplete. It's "Understanding Engineers: Feasibility."

I do like how he framed out the difficulty of problems into categories.

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known
Engineers are tuned to think in terms of RIGHT or WRONG and MBAs think in
terms of PRIORITIES.

