Why Engineers Don't Write Recipe Books

by guitartabguy • 15 years ago

15 16 15 years ago

derleth2• 15 years ago

Is it really too much for someone to make a blog platform that actually works correctly, as opposed to using JavaScript to paper over fundamental deficiencies?

neutronicus• 15 years ago

I'm sort of interested in your opinion on this. Care to elaborate?

derleth2• 15 years ago

Basically, I'm a little tired of people using JavaScript to implement the basic functionality of a text-oriented website.

A blog is, by definition, fundamentally text-oriented, as opposed to, say, a vlog (video log) or a podcast, and so should work acceptably well, if not attractively or with all of the intended features, without JavaScript. Ideally, it should degrade gracefully without CSS, too, but that amount of respect for your readers is probably a lost cause.

And it is all about respect for your readers: Books don't demand you read them on a veranda attached to a five-star hotel in New Delhi regardless of how much that would improve the experience. Books are quite happy to be read in a grimy bus terminal in Hoboken, New Jersey, if that's the best the reader can manage. Text-based web pages are quite capable of being read, at an ugly 'bus terminal in Hoboken' level, in browsers like Lynx or Netscape 4 or Internet Explorer 6, and the designer should not presume to demand that their readership have access to first-class tickets booked on Firefox 4 or Chrome 11.

Sometimes this isn't possible. Sometimes, you really do want to put video on the web and people who can't handle video are out of luck. However, you and I both know about the impact open formats and captioning and other measures of respect for the audience can have.

Finally, I could mention the blind tied to screenreaders, but that's insulting both to the technology of screenreader software, which I hear is fairly advanced these days, and to the authors of web pages, who should not need their noses rubbed in the existence of physical limitations simply to be convinced to show basic consideration for their audience.

(Personally, I find a .30-06 at medium range quite suffices.)

tyisathome• 15 years ago

Humorous, but I beg to differ: http://www.cookingforgeeks.com/

It's a great book. Tons of analogies that engineers will love.

kipwork• 15 years ago

There's also

http://www.cookingforengineers.com/

aaronbrethorst• 15 years ago

I'm surprised no one's mentioned Nathan Myhrvold's multi-volume cookbook: http://www.techflash.com/mobile/seattle/2010/08/former_micro...

Dylanlacey• 15 years ago

Given Intellectual Venturers' reputation, perhaps they are afraid of being sued?

Modernist Cooking is still a fairly niche tome, even amongst the technorati hobbyist cooks. I actually only stumbled across it a few weeks ago, and I have Food Nerd almost as much as I have Code Nerd.

RK• 15 years ago

This sounds a lot more like a chemist than an engineer. (OK, maybe a chemical engineer.)

itgoon• 15 years ago

That's funny. I got a few dev groups to update their documentation by comparing it to a recipe: list everything needed, first. List the things which can be done ahead of time. After that, preparation steps, and then the actual time-critical steps.

It is working out quite nice.

Yeroc• 15 years ago

I do think that a proper engineer would use weight measurements (grams) in most cases (with the exception of liquids) rather than less accurate volume measurements.

thwarted• 15 years ago

Isn't the gram a measure of mass? A gram of flour is a gram of flour at sea level, at 10,000 ft, and on a space station.

Helianthus16• 15 years ago

There is no sense in my mind that a cook is not an engineer of the kitchen.

Engineering is just using quantities, directions, and properties to effect a result.

weaksauce• 15 years ago

Yup... it's also the best science experiment.

filiwickers• 15 years ago

You are spot on. I am a huge math nerd and I love to bake. Chocolate chip cookies are delicious.

After college I thought briefly about starting a cookie business. I have a notebook full of detailed cookie experiments. I changed quantities, ingredients, mixing technique, and baking temp/time trying to make the best cookies. My housemates tested the experiment results. Luckily, they were more than pleased most of the time.

Baking is all about chemistry and reactions. The delicious part is just a fantastic side effect.

julianz• 15 years ago

They're nice but I find them to be much too crunchy. I'd suggest the additional step of removing the calcium carbonate coating from ingredient #8 before it goes into reactor #2.

derobert• 15 years ago

Obviously a troll. Engineers using consistent units‽ HA. Maybe he/she meant chemist, in which case:

- cm3 != cm³. Unicode is 20 years old now, no excuses.

- flour is (a) measured by weight, not volume; (b) at most 14% gluten, and that's very high-gluten flour used for bagels and some breads, not cookies.

I fully encourage feeding the trolls with this recipe, however.

Why Engineers Don't Write Recipe Books

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