Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by OldGuyInTheClub 628 days ago
The engineers of his day and his client both raised concerns. This is the first I've heard that engineers build to barely last. Maybe that's true in software. I hope to hell that it is not true for homes, cars, roads, bridges, aircraft, and spacecraft.
1 comments

Durability isn’t free. No reason to build for 30,000 years when needs change over time.

Public infrastructure like bridges are designed to predictably decay over time so they can be maintained or replaced if they are still useful. Just look at the NYC subway system there’s tons of old tunnels that just aren’t useful today, they didn’t collapse but they still became obsolete and that’s inside a major city which kept it’s subway system.