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From: chrisp@regenmeister.EBay.Sun.COM (Chris Prael)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Art vs. Engineering
Message-ID: <1312@grapevine.EBay.Sun.COM>
Date: 9 May 91 17:38:04 GMT
References: <25170@as0c.sei.cmu.edu>
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From article <25170@as0c.sei.cmu.edu>, by rsd@sei.cmu.edu (Richard S D'Ippolito):
 
> Some interesting points, Tim, but I believe that you have one thing exactly
> backwards:
 
>  In article <1991May6.165902.2116@ssd.kodak.com> Tim Nichols writes:
 
>  >Software Scientists will fill the artisans role by continually pushing
>  >the envelope.  They will be the technology innovators.

>  >Software Engineers will apply the state-of-the-art technology to
>  >products and processes with precision and quality.
 
> In traditional engineering disciplines, the engineers have pushed the state
> of the practice with both innovative technology and innovative applications.
> The engineers backed off only when the technology failed.  It was always
> left to the scientists to explain (sometimes many years later) why a
> particular technology succeeded or failed.  Consider bridges and the
> airplane.
 
> Current software science will not be improved without good engineering
> examples (successes and failures).

Rich makes exactly the right points, very accurately.  Anyone who is 
willing to understand the relationship between science and engineering 
in any field needs to understand what he said here.

The thing that originally attracted my attention is the title of this
thread:  Art vs. Engineering.  It is, simply, wrong.  Engineering IS
art.  Good engineering is good art and bad engineering is bad art.
There is, and can be, no versus to the relationship between art and
engineering.

This statement becomes abundantly clear is you compare, for example,
the East German Trabant to the Honda Civic.  Closer to home, compare
BASIC to C.  C is great engineering and great art.  What BASIC became
on PCs is an embarrasment to our field.

No engineer functions without an aesthetic sense.  Some software
engineers' aesthetic sense is pretty crude, others are artists on a par
with Brunel (the English civil and mechanical engineer), Jano (the great 
Italian engineer of car engines), Chapman (the brilliant English
chassis engineer), or Picasso (the famous painter).

My personal view is that the current state of the visual arts has been
caused by most of the potential great artists having gone into various
fields of engineering instead of the visual arts for the last 100
years.


Chris Prael