[jayalpha]

"The integrity of engineering excellence should never be sacrificed for profit and/or conveniency in places where it involves human lives."

There is always a trade off, your statement is too bold for a world of limited resources. We can use engineering to make the roads safer. Spent a trillion USD on road safety will save lives for sure. But maybe it is spend better on cancer R&D efforts?

The safest plane would be the most expensive and most uncompetitive since it needs unlimited resources and unlimited time for being designed.

[ptidhomme]

I must say I disagree with this stance.

It's not so much a matter of ressources than of specifically engineering excellence. There's plentiful examples of a much better product that was created with less ressources than the shitty existing competition (this must be commonplace for HN members).

I'm convinced the safest plane is not the most expensive, it's the one designed through sound and clear-sighted engineering.

[jayalpha]

Since there won't be an ultimately and best product for ever, there is always a way to improve things. Then time and financial restrains come into place again.

Are you an engineer? Your argument sounds naive. Or to give a counter example: In the Soviet Union there were likely more accidents (normalized) compared to the west. Yet, they did not focus on maximizing profits.

[ptidhomme]

I am, and I have experienced many times what I'm talking about.

A simpler yet effective design (may it be initial or rework) comes at a much lower cost than a flawed one, which inevitably aggregates irrelevant complexities.

[jayalpha]

"aggregates irrelevant complexities"

Who decides this? This is not a trivial question.

The F-35 fighter is a good example. Trades many disadvantages (not fast, not good in dog-fighting, tremendous long maintenance time, low payload etc.) for one advantage. The F-35 may or may not be invisible to an able opponent. But this decision is a tremendous difficult one. Based on your argument, it would be better to stick with a simple design. This was worked for the Soviet Union in WW2 (don't build the best tank, build a decent one, build many).

You may like this story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superiority_(short_story)

[ptidhomme]

Thanks for the suggested read, sounds interesting indeed.

I'm not comparing simple vs. complex but rather sound vs. flawed, although often sound = simpler than flawed.

The 737 here is yet another example of this : - the MAX design is flawed : faulty risk assessment of MCAS, seemingly unstable airframe in some configurations - a likely sound design could be : airframe rework, thorough risk assessment, extra pilot training...

While the flawed design came at a lower initial cost, it will now overrun the cost of a likely sound one (further rework + retrofit + sales/reputation damage + legal), including the cost of a probable longer design phase in the latter.

(I concede that legal/sales costs are not directly technical debt costs).

[icebraining]

You're talking about the cost of the product, but what about the cost of redesigning in itself? Including the opportunity cost of delaying the product to keep reworking the design.

[JshWright]

How is that a counter example? Just because you're not focusing on profits doesn't mean you are focusing on rigorous engineering.

[jayalpha]

rigorous engineering comes for free?