[smackjer]

The question isn't whether problems should be solved using engineering strategies -- in general, I agree that they should. Rather, it's whether everything in life is an engineering problem.

Here's an example: When I was 18 I wanted to listen to some new music. This was when we got our music on CDs, and we didn't have algorithms like iTunes Genius to help us find something we might like. I bought something just because I liked the cover art. Fortunately I ended up liking the album. (It was this one: http://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/dink/dink/)

[lmm]

Which shows... what, exactly? That a non-engineering approach to music discovery is better? No, you got lucky. That your music discovery procedure was adequate and not worth investing time to optimize? Sure, but that's an engineering judgement.