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by letwhile 1726 days ago
I don't see the point of this. As an engineer you get a task and then pick a solution from a bag you have, that is not optimal, but fulfills the constraints you got. Time and money, features, accuracy, speed, waste, etc.

Where is the difference with software? You get the same kind of constraints and need to build something from libraries and custom code, that fits all of them.

There may be more constraints for a skyscraper than a small garage, and there are more constraints for airplane software than a website. You can't write flight controllers in javascript, the same way you cannot build your airplane out of toilet paper. There are also more constraints for airplane software than for your backyard garage. It only depends on the regulations in the field. Most of the times software doesn't have the potential to harm people, like houses and bridges have. So you have less regulations.

If you want to build a bicycle, there is no right solution either. You could benchmark it by weight, like you could benchmark software by memory usage.

Most engineering products only rely on best practice and the way the company does it since years, from experience. There is no "right" solution, neither in civil-, nor in software-, nor in engineering in general.