They're hacking together extremely professionally, but I'd imagine many engineers at BMD consider themselves hacking and what they do to be hacking, but I don't have access to any. I'd say my general premise is true though.
This isn't a garage operation with a bunch of dudes hacking on a plywood workbench. This is a real engineering organization with a well-optimized process and enough vertical integration to deliver excellent products at scale. That's how you do what they do.
It is always interesting to watch people on HN, who obviously know very little about anything outside of hacking software, talk about making physical products. There's another thread on the first page about the realities of making a single plastic part. Read it. <sarcasm>It was obviously hacked together.</sarcasm>
Well, I used to work there… so I at least have first-hand experience of the unorthodox methods and flexible working culture, one that is focussed on solutions rather than academic-type rigour. You’d be surprised how small the teams can be that design these products, ready for manufacture in Singapore.
Good for you. Don't confuse an optimized process for "hacking". Don't diminish their accomplishments that way.
I have lots of history with this company, including being personal friends with one of the founders for the last twenty years (as in, I stay at his home when I visit). They don't hack shit together. They have optimized an efficient engineering and manufacturing process.
There's a simple reality in physical product engineering: The engineering process is directly related to product quality and reliability, which, in turn, is directly connected to failure rates and support/service load. A product that is hacked together will, at scale, invariably result in a bad quality and reliability along with a massive support load. This is not a financially viable approach at scale, not at all.
Sure, one can hack things together during initial ideation and product definition. This, in the context of a solid product development process, is a normal aspect of almost any engineering organization, from consumer to aerospace. However, once enough is learned about the available solutions and approaches, not entering into a well-run engineering process is a costly mistake. No successful organization at scale hacks products together, it just doesn't happen.
I think you have some preconceived notions of what "hacking" is and isn't. Most on Hacker News do not use "hack" as a pejorative. I suspect in this case it's just an engineering / practicality focused ethos that can be applied as opposed to "design by committee."
Hacking something together - and then refining it - is how many good products are designed.
I agree with the poster above, that you're taking umbridge with my use of the verb "hack" - I mean this in a respectful way towards engineers who devise clever solutions to problems, and iterate quickly and knowledgeably, rather than "designing by committee". I'm sure Grant would confirm that (as happening for the lifetime of his brilliant company) so go ask him next time you get a chance to hop off your high horse and go for a sleepover.
An effect of BMD's "hacking" is that on occasion obvious bugs have crept into their products, such as the infamous "black hole sun" issue in the early cameras, whereby extreme overexposure caused by pointing the camera at the sun resulted in the capture of it showing it as black rather than white - https://neiloseman.com/blackmagic-production-camera-field-re... Issues like this can be avoided with more rigorous testing in development rather than fixes in firmware and in Resolve after the fact, which was what was suggested. No doubt an artefact caused by the hack-y nature of the products at the time.
Plus the clue is in the name - it's Blackmagic.
Finally, go into the office if you're such an intimate. "a garage operation with a bunch of dudes hacking on a plywood workbench" will be pretty close to what you find. Just once those dudes have banged their heads together, they write phenomenal code late into the night to get the thing made.
They're hacking together extremely professionally, but I'd imagine many engineers at BMD consider themselves hacking and what they do to be hacking, but I don't have access to any. I'd say my general premise is true though.