Powerpoint engineering and the downfall of quality

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
lephone...
Jeff Findley wrote:
Ever had to deal with an engineer who had no clue what it meant to make a
drawing good enough that manufacturing could actually make the thing? In
this day and age, engineers are expected to the job that draftsmen once
did because the same CAD software they use to make 3D models of parts can
also "make 2D drawings".

And you can see where that's going...someone will build a prototype part
and a optical scanning machine will look at both the completed part and
all of its components and whip up any type of drawings you want of it in
near infinite detail in a matter of seconds. You could even put coding on
various components of the prototype, and the scanner would read the code
and list what exactly the component is made of, how it was made, and what
to do with it during assembly.
Then that data goes off to the assembly area where another scanner is
watching the workers assembling the part, and corrects them if they do
something wrong in real time.
Shortly after that robotic machinery is assembling the parts all on its
own and the workers are dead, as the robots got sick-and-tired of being
told what to do all day by their human masters and their clumsy and
fallible ways. Then the robots will become fully sentient and wonder what
the workers who made them were really like, so they will build artificial
humans.
This has all happened before, and will happen again.

What you wrote is science fiction. Where's the smiley face? ;-)

I work in the CAD/CAE industry and we're nowhere close to what you're
writing about, and likely never will be. Machines are only as smart as the
programmer who writes the code, the maintenance guys who keep them running,
and so forth and so on.

The aerospace analogy would be sustained hypersonic cruise. We're going to
get there... any decade now... maybe in another 10 years...

The energy analogy would be sustained fusion reactions which output more
energy than they require to sustain. Again, we're going to get there... any
decade now... it's just another 10 years out...

Jeff
--
"Take heart amid the deepening gloom
that your dog is finally getting enough cheese" - Deteriorata - National
Lampoon

Derek Lyons wrote:
So what? Making 2D drawings on CAD software is considerably easier
than doing so ink-on-vellum and you eliminate the tedious
back-and-forth between the draftsman and the engineer(s) in
validating the drawings.

Is easier actually "better?" From the discussion thusfar (that of it
I've absorved) old, manual methods were slow, and changes were quite
difficult - that would seem to "select" for those who thought the big
picture and perhaps even thought ahead quite a bit. If it is quick
and easy, the selection criteria applied to the
engineers/designers/draftsmen change don't they?

rick jones
--
denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, rebirth...
where do you want to be today?
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway...
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH...

Jeff Findley wrote:
So I can read them on the monitor screen down at the library, or on the
monitor screen at home.

True, but you still have to go to the library to do this. That's not the
same as the Internet.

No, I can tie in to the library's periodical data base right from home,
and for free to boot.

Pat

On Jan 14, 11:17 pm, (Derek Lyons) wrote:
"Jeff Findley" wrote:

"Derek Lyons" wrote in message
...
Pat Flannery wrote:

Derek Lyons wrote:

There's plenty of things ink-on-vellum can't do either.

Although annoying, spilling things on the computer keyboard is a lot
less traumatic than spilling them on a important drawing you've been
working on for days.

No disagreement here, as I've done exactly that to a vellum drawing.

I also had drawings lost in the mail, left out in the rain, and eaten
by the blueprint machine...

Ever had to deal with an engineer who had no clue what it meant to make a
drawing good enough that manufacturing could actually make the thing?

No I haven't. So what?

In this day and age, engineers are expected to the job that draftsmen once
did because the same CAD software they use to make 3D models of parts can
also "make 2D drawings".

So what? Making 2D drawings on CAD software is considerably easier
than doing so ink-on-vellum and you eliminate the tedious
back-and-forth between the draftsman and the engineer(s) in validating
the drawings.

But you introduce new tedium. Like every program requiring a different
CAD program... ProE for this, CATIA for that, Unigraphics for the
other, etc. If someone is a trained-up CAD draftsman, and his 9-5 job
is to draft on CAD systems, then he will almost certainly be damend
good at what he does. But I've wasted *hours* just trying to figure
out how to draw a damned arc segment from HERE to THERE because I'm
having to learn a new CAD program on the same day that a new employer
wants me to start cranking out design product.

Give me AutoCAD, and I can draft the world. I kick ass at it. But the
other programs? Never use any of 'em commonly enough to become truly
proficient. And even when I got trained up in, say, IDEAS... I'd do a
few things in IDEAS, then get assigned some other task that doesn't
need the use of IDEAS , and when I get back to it, months later, I've
forgotten how to draw a fargin' circle.

Pat Flannery wrote:

Jeff Findley wrote:

No offense Derek, but the information on the Internet, when it's actually
correct, is trivial compared to what you can find in a good library.
When I was at Purdue, every school had their own library so that it could
be
stocked with all of the periodicals necessary for that specialty. Today,
only a small fraction of that information can be found on the Internet.

Oh yeah? You just try to find "Hot women who crave sex near Jamestown,
North Dakota" at your college library.

This presupposes a couple of facts not in evidence:
1) My college library is near Jamestown, North Dakota.
2) There are hot women craving sex in Jamestown, North Dakota
Note1: Unlikely in January, nothing's hot in North Dakota in January.
Note2: Is there _anything_ near Jamestown, North Dakota?

I can attest that at least in the mid 1970s, it was possible to find hot
women craving sex in most college libraries.

Most of the women in that library probably don't even _have_ breast
implants...or even _know_ that there is such a thing as the
triple-penetration "Rascally Rabid Rabbit" vibrator with the patented
"Flying Dingleberries" feature, much less be an expert in its proper use.

Don't place bets that you are not prepared to have called,
That's all I'm sayin'

The fact that I have never recognized one of these "Jamestown Area"
women on the street probably just means that the interesting ones are
already taken, or too busy with their vibrators to get out much. ;-)

Pat, North Dakota is wasted on you.

--
Pete Stickney
Failure is not an option
It comes bundled with the system.

Peter Stickney wrote:
This presupposes a couple of facts not in evidence:
1) My college library is near Jamestown, North Dakota.
2) There are hot women craving sex in Jamestown, North Dakota
Note1: Unlikely in January, nothing's hot in North Dakota in January.

The women aren't that hot in summer either unless they accidently set
fire to themselves while playing with fireworks.
H.P. Lovecraft would have had a field day with some of the creatures he
could find living around here...part woman...part carp*.

Note2: Is there _anything_ near Jamestown, North Dakota?

Why, yes!: http://sorabji.com/2002/road_trip/no...ota/jamestown/

*I'll bet Kylie Minogue just loves this, BTW:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...e-Minogue.html
"Did you see that Great White? It must have weighed 40 Kylies!"
"50 Kylies I'd say, mate!"

Pat

wrote in message
...
On Jan 14, 11:17 pm, (Derek Lyons) wrote:
"Jeff Findley" wrote:

"Derek Lyons" wrote in message
...
Pat Flannery wrote:

Derek Lyons wrote:

There's plenty of things ink-on-vellum can't do either.

Although annoying, spilling things on the computer keyboard is a lot
less traumatic than spilling them on a important drawing you've been
working on for days.

No disagreement here, as I've done exactly that to a vellum drawing.

I also had drawings lost in the mail, left out in the rain, and eaten
by the blueprint machine...

Ever had to deal with an engineer who had no clue what it meant to make
a
drawing good enough that manufacturing could actually make the thing?

No I haven't. So what?

In this day and age, engineers are expected to the job that draftsmen
once
did because the same CAD software they use to make 3D models of parts
can
also "make 2D drawings".

So what? Making 2D drawings on CAD software is considerably easier
than doing so ink-on-vellum and you eliminate the tedious
back-and-forth between the draftsman and the engineer(s) in validating
the drawings.

But you introduce new tedium. Like every program requiring a different
CAD program... ProE for this, CATIA for that, Unigraphics for the
other, etc. If someone is a trained-up CAD draftsman, and his 9-5 job
is to draft on CAD systems, then he will almost certainly be damend
good at what he does. But I've wasted *hours* just trying to figure
out how to draw a damned arc segment from HERE to THERE because I'm
having to learn a new CAD program on the same day that a new employer
wants me to start cranking out design product.

Give me AutoCAD, and I can draft the world. I kick ass at it. But the
other programs? Never use any of 'em commonly enough to become truly
proficient. And even when I got trained up in, say, IDEAS... I'd do a
few things in IDEAS, then get assigned some other task that doesn't
need the use of IDEAS , and when I get back to it, months later, I've
forgotten how to draw a fargin' circle.

I-DEAS is dead. You can still buy "NX I-DEAS", but there isn't much new
going on there. NX (the new name for Unigraphics) is now the wave of the
future. And I know it's great stuff, because I work on some of the code.
;-)

If there wasn't so much competition in the CAD software market, innovation
would be stifled, right?

Jeff
--
"Take heart amid the deepening gloom
that your dog is finally getting enough cheese" - Deteriorata - National
Lampoon