Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by blackrock 1918 days ago
Engineering is bounded by the laws of physics.

Software Engineering is bounded by the laws of magic.

Engineering requires creativity to harness a material to perform useful work, within the material’s tolerances.

Software Engineering requires creativity to create worlds that have no existence in reality, other than in the imagination of the software engineer himself.

And in today’s world, software engineering is essential to make physical engineering a reality.

2 comments

I rather think software engineering is bounded by battery life and disk space.
Not to mention, the programmer's imagination is bounded by caloric intake and grey matter.
I always find it a bit cute when people try to claim that something does not reduce to pure physics or somehow circumvents it.

TRY ME! I bet no one can think of a single thing that I can't say is just ultimately due to physics.

I'm told that the world is the totality of facts, not of things.
No, software engineering is also bound by the laws of physics. The worlds do have existence in reality, which you will find out as soon as anything you create starts hitting the physical limits of CPU, memory, latency, which are all pretty much governed by c, the cosmic speed limit.

> And in today’s world, software engineering is essential to make physical engineering a reality.

It is literally quite the exact opposite.

I believe the phrase: “No shit Sherlock!” aptly applies to you.