The Soul of a New Machine

by Tracy Kidder

Most engineers, I think, consider themselves to be professionals, like doctors or lawyers, and though some of it clearly serves only the interests of corporations, engineers do have a professional code. Among its tenets is the general idea that the engineer’s right environment is a highly structured one, in which only right and wrong answers exist. It’s a binary world; the computer might be its paradigm. And many engineers seem to aspire to be binary people within it. No wonder. The prospect is alluring. It doesn’t matter if you’re ugly or graceless or even half crazy; if you produce right results in this world, your colleagues must accept you. It’s an exciting environment to contemplate; you can change the way people think if you can provide the right reason, and you can predict the way in which others may change you. Since there are only right or wrong answers to questions, technical disputes among engineers must always have resolutions. It follows that no enmity should proceed from a dispute among engineers.

"Among its tenets is the general idea that the engineer’s right environment is a highly structured one, in which only right and wrong answers exist" The last part of this statement is highly debatable. I believe that, sometimes, engineers have to make a choice between competing options, where each option has merits and demerits in equal measure.