Hacker News Reader

Comment by dpc_pw | Hacker News Reader

> I love that there are so few limits in "software world." No pesky laws of physics.

Actually...

Laws of physics are very important to software engineering. Stuff like speed of light and ability to disperse heat have a tremendous influence on how computation can and is done, and how we design software systems.

Then there are laws entropy and complexity, math laws & cryptography, social laws (how do people cooperate), game theory, economic laws and legal laws. And bunch of other stuff that I forgot about now. All greatly limiting / shaping the way we can create software at scale.

Software engineering is one of the most (if not the most) complex forms of engineering out there. A lot of people don't realize it, since they routinely work with tiny parts of the whole picture. Writing a typical REST API backend, or making a RPi blink an LED is like civic engineer building a popsicle stick bridge. Sure it's fun, but that's not "the whole field".

View on HN

> Actually...

> Laws of physics are very important to software engineering.

there are practical concerns abound, especially if you're going to focused as you have on on industrialized software production.

but to me the defining nature of computing & the digital is that it is very near to unlimited, that it is about how we think, what abstractions we create, out of vast vast vast potential & endless capabilities.

yes there are some limits. but growing up, I wanted to build boats & houses & submarines & planes. much of the attraction of digital technology was a near into complete freedom from physical constraint. the 486 I had was a machine with infinite potential, something I could put myself into endlessly, ever becoming more, ever imagineering further frontiers to build & advance into, & everyone else could do the same, & we might still never cross paths. computers are an "unmaterial" wonder, something wholly unlike all else.

I implore us to think not just of the limits, laws, but of the endless spaces the mind might be free to travel & explore amid the digital.

I suspect that most engineers do not regularly come into contact with the laws of physics, or it's dressed up as "xyz is too slow".

Software development is a field with a lot of breadth and depth, and a lot of engineers do not regularly come into contact with things that are "far away" from them.

The other day I saw a comment on a forum about a videogame saying something along the lines of "an experienced programmer would wonder why there are two different compilers at work here".

The industry has expanded enough that we can have people with a decent amount of time spent programming without ever encountering things that other people with the same amount of time consider normal.

Importantly, it's vital people don't look down on engineers which don't work at the very lowest levels of abstraction. There is quite a lot of value gleaned from abstracting the electrons away.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com