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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

> Anyone can build a bridge that stands up, but only an engineer can build a bridge that barely stands up.

That's a nice quip but once you cross spans of 5 meters or so you'll find out that that is a lot harder than it seems, especially for non-trivial loads.

The joke of course refers to the fact that to build any structure that has to be both safe and economical is hard but please don't make it seem as if building bridges is easy, it's anything but.

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Jacquesm, yes, I agree completely. But the point of jokes like these is that they make a point succinctly and well enough. Hah.

But yes, building bridges is hard. So is building software. But the job of an engineer is solving a hard task within budget and within deadline.

Again, sounds nice, but an ME wouldnt be so cocky if he had to smelt his own materials and quality grade them before even starting to build the bridge. ME's get the benefit of a older, more mature industry that surrounds them and enables them to make rational decisions. See how quickly that goes to hell when getting substandard parts from a sketchy supplier. Then you can see the schedules and the budgets go to hell.

Multiply this times 100 and you are just about in the same situation as web developers. Maybe in 100 years, an ecosystem will grow around to support us? I can only hope. For now, i cant even rely on xml to be marshalled the same unless i control both client and server.

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