• Slotos@feddit.nl
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    9 months ago

    That’s how engineers think in their free time.

    When the specific goal is something I can do manually, and it’s not pressing, I would rather spend time learning how to make a tool to do it. I might not need the tool ever, I do use the knowledge picked up on those forays every day.

    • 0x4E4F@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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      9 months ago

      Aha… so that’s why my wife says “why you gotta always complicate things” 😂.

      Not regarding coding in particular, I’m an electronics and telecommunications engineer, I do code a little though (here and there 😋), but regarding every day things, like maybe make something that will ease my life, yeah sure, I do that. But it has to be something I use frequently enough, otherwise, no I don’t see the point in spending the time and the energy to actually do it.

      • Slotos@feddit.nl
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        9 months ago

        Different disciplines - different thresholds. But yeah, that’s exactly it.

        With software engineering, the unknown space is vast, yet the tools are great. So it’s very easy to start tinkering and get lost in the process.

        • 0x4E4F@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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          9 months ago

          Yeah, I know what you mean. A colleague of mine in uni that studied software engineering had this take on it: “I don’t have to invest anything but time in what I’m doing, so making mistakes or doing something for the heck of it is justified. On the other hand you (me) invest not only time, but also money in a project that might come out to be not really practical to be used in the real world.”

          He has a point to be honest. Plus, with real hardware projects it’s not like you can get “lost” in the design process and be like “u, I can do this, and add this, and maybe this” cuz that costs extra money and time, plus a schematic and PCB redesign, etc. So, yeah, I do agree that it’s easier to tinker and get lost in code.