Re: CAD History and Engineers

From: <Christopher>
Date: Sat Sep 29 2007 - 17:24:00 EDT

On Sep 28, 2007, at 8:47 PM, Richard Beale wrote:

> it takes some balls to tout that your product is so
> incredibly fabulous so as to make generations of career people obsolete
> and redundant.

I guess I've read bigger bullshit, but then I follow politics pretty closely. I'm not even convinced that CAD really makes design more productive. It may be true, but I've never seen convincing proof. It's fairly apparent that it allows no-hopers to produce what looks like engineering drawings, and allows managers who don't know the difference between cartooning and design to pay people less, but I don't think it's making actual design any more productive. I haven't seen that products are becoming cheaper, and it doesn't look like big ticket items like automobiles and aircraft are being delivered faster.

I claim design is a creative process and that most designs are created mentally before the first sketch is made. The subsequent graphic representation is simply a matter of organization and communication--CAD's part is to streamline the presentation. Without organization and communications skills, the graphics can be produced, or appear to be produced, but it may not communicate necessary information definitively. With CAD you have an easier job redoing the necessary documention, but that isn't productivity improvement. It just means that you can fix screwups faster.

This is probably an oversimplification, but no more so than all the sales pitches I've seen for software. Software isn't a solution or and approach--it's a tool. Good tools don't make hackers into skilled labor.
Christopher Wright P.E. |"They couldn't hit an elephant at <a href="/group/PipingDesign/post?postID=fyq9H_md-FCxjP97N-ny0V2qwSjL0hdsn8zgzZYq6ySrTCjYWfHAIGafeg5y9r-Lm8WSppxfSkSjuVEh">chrisw@skypoint.com</a> | this distance" (last words of Gen.

____________________| John Sedgwick, Spotsylvania 1864)

<a href="http://www.skypoint.com/~chrisw">http://www.skypoint.com/~chrisw</a> tool. Received on Sat Sep 29 17:24:00 2007