Ask HN: Teach me to think like an engineer

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6959773

by interpares • 13 years ago

2 2 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

A few years ago I often heard this advice: go to law school, because it will teach you how to think. Nowadays I keep hearing, reading or experiencing for myself that law school has been replaced with engineering, with many pundits citing someone's background in engineering as the key factor that helped them solve all manner of non-engineering problems. For example, from the WaPo piece on Edward Snowden currently on the frontpage: "Snowden is an orderly thinker, with an engineer’s approach to problem-solving." How can I learn to be an "orderly thinker"?

thenerdfiles• 13 years ago

Write unit tests first.

Or rather: Consider for yourself that everything in the universe, from some perspective or other (not a God's Eye View/Perspective — but assuming you had all the facts of the case, but simply were of a different position to review it), under some context or other, behaves most perceptibly w/r/t a quantized model of interpretation.

Then, do a bubble sort on all of their secondary properties, or even all of the things, whatever in your best estimation viably counts as a thing. Is "hatred" a thing? Is "liberty" a thing? Is the liberty in this woman a thing? Is the liberty in this man a thing? Does this man's liberty follow from this woman's liberty? Do parakeets sense justice? Is my cat the grand chancellor of the litterbox? Do I rob this man of his livelihood if I take his bagel?

Some of these considerations are structurally interesting, but often times go to the back of the list.

sharemywin• 13 years ago

engineers have all sorts of tricks(mostly math or alogrithems) for solving problems. remember story problems from school. we had them in our engineering classes.

Ask HN: Teach me to think like an engineer

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