[omegabravo]

It's nice to learn there is a name for something that took me a few years to discover. If something doesn't make sense to me, it's probably because I'm not realising the whole scenario.

I've learnt not to critique other peoples designs without a full understanding. The designer probably would have changed a few things if they had a second attempt. Unknown and usually silly requirements can play a big part in design that you as an outsider are unaware of. I've learnt to assume competence rather than incompetence. At the time, there was likely a very good reason for such a decision.

[seanp2k2]

And sometimes the requirements that a thing was built on aren’t meant to make the best possible product, e.g. budget, repairability / maintainability, compromise due to integration with other systems, etc etc

In the same vein as “never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”, “never attribute to engineering that which is adequately explained by finance” :)