Eng Talk – thoughts and discussions on engineering software

On Simplicity

July 1, 2022 By Mike Stephenson Leave a Comment

I’ve always had a reverence for a simple solution. I remember a professor in graduate school gave us a problem to solve and when we arrived at the next class, those of us that managed to solve it had a few pages of calculations before arriving at the final answer! The professor then showed us a little mathematical identity that turned the solution into just a couple of steps. The complex solution became a simple solution if you knew the trick. It was elegant. Ever since that experience, I’ve been somewhat alert to complexity.

Many have had much to say about simplicity and complexity. You may have heard of some of these blokes!

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.
Confucius

Complexity abounds. You don’t have to look very far to find instances. For example, the United States instituted an income tax in 1913. The written code was 400 pages. By 2013 it had grown to 74,000 pages.

The American healthcare system has been tinkered with continually and involves multiple parties including insurance companies, doctors, hospitals and government. Add to that the large pharmaceutical companies, their companion government agencies such as the FDA and CDC.

Nearly everyone is dissatisfied with the current system. According to a 2018 Gallup survey, 71% of the US public consider the system in a “state of crisis” or “has major problems.”

Unnecessary Complexity

I remember receiving a package in the mail from Discover Card for my merchant account. It was completely about the legal aspects of accepting the Discover card as payment for goods I sold on my website. Such agreements normally would have been hardcopy documents. This is basically a business agreement between two parties – Discover and the merchant. It’s a simple service that enables Discover card to facilitate a transaction by collecting money from a consumer and depositing that money into a bank account of the seller, minus an agreed-upon percentage that represents Discover Card’s cost of doing business and their profit.

A Simple Solution

I visited a gas compression facility in the Mississippi area some years ago. We added a heat exchanger to a couple of GE Frame 3 gas turbine engines converting the system from a Brayton to a recuperated cycle. These engines were used to drive gas compressors on a natural gas pipeline. Such pumping stations are key to delivering natural gas to homes and businesses.

I was struck by a simple solution to shut down the gas turbine engine in case of a fire. It had a cord that was attached to a shutdown arm. The cord kept this arm in the on or up position and if the cord was severed, gravity took over, the shutdown arm would fall and the engine would automatically shut down! The cord was positioned in such a way that a flame would burn through the cord and of course the engine would shut down. It relied on gravity which is something you know will always be there. More sophisticated solutions undoubtedly are used to sense a fire but these would rely on an electrical signal and so there would be some probability, albeit small, of failure.

Wisdom on Simplicity

Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.
Steve Jobs

I always like Einstein’s viewpoint that “everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

Three Rules of Work: Out of clutter find simplicity; From discord find harmony; In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.

This next one is by a giant in the software development industry by the name of Anders Hejlsberg. Anders created Turbo Pascal in the ’80s, Delphi in the ’90s and the C# programming language in the 2000s. He has other achievements but each one has simplicity at the root.

Simplicity has always been something that I value. Whenever I look at what’s done well in the world or in our field it seems like all the really good ideas are simple ideas.
My litmus test quite often is if you can’t explain to me in five minutes what this thing is supposed to do then it’s probably not a good idea. The simple ones are the ones that win.
Anders Hejlsberg

The quote above is from an interview at Microsoft.

I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.
Lao Tzu

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
Leonardo da Vinci

If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself.
Albert Einstein

Takeaways

I’ve found a lesson here is take the time, energy and thought to look over something and see if you can simplify it. One of the things I’m alert to is to find the correct sequence of steps necessary to accomplish a given task. Another is to ensure every step is necessary and not arbitrary.

Simplifying must be part of the creation process regardless of what is being created. In the software world, there is a somewhat recent practice of refactoring which makes code easier to understand and read because the goal is to simplify code and reduce complexities. It isn’t always done because it’s done on code that already is functioning and it’s easy to say it’s done even though the next poor soul that picks up that code may take a long time to understand it – or he may never fully understand it! Software developers that are more like craftsman will refactor as it’s a personal integrity point as they take pride in their work.

I offer this up merely as something to consider on your next project. It’s important to get far enough away from the project to sit quietly, perhaps with a cup of coffee, and ask yourself if what you have is free of complexities and if not, is there anything that can be done to simplify. Good luck!

Building an Engineering Library

October 8, 2020 By Mike Stephenson Leave a Comment

When creating engineering software, it is paramount to have reference material at hand. This includes handbooks, textbooks, journal articles and even carefully vetted internet-sourced information.

I have always had a thing for books and remember as a young man walking into a very vast university library and realizing how much human knowledge, in fact all human knowledge was recorded in books. That was pretty mind-blowing to me at the time. I realized we were wholly dependent on books for the transfer of all knowledge gained over the centuries from one generation to the next. The printing press has generally been considered one of the most important inventions for human progress and I certainly can see that, yet we never give it much thought.

When I started the engineering-software.com website, I had a vision to create engineering software applications and I knew I needed the technical knowhow to support these efforts. I initially took advantage of the engineering library at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), near where I live. With modest annual donations, I was able to obtain borrowing privileges and this helped immensely with consulting jobs I had a the time and for the development of new applications. But what I really wanted was a vast library at my fingertips, right in the home office. But as a fledgling young company, I had to do this on a shoestring budget.

The Library

Today I have such a library that any engineer would be proud of and it was painless to create because I did it over several years, bit by bit. This blog post can help anyone interested in doing the same.

Step 1 – Bookcases!

First and foremost you need bookshelves! I have several of these, all purchased from IKEA because they are simple, inexpensive and work well. I currently own nine IKEA BILLY bookcases and they have served me well. They are currently priced at $49 and stand 79.5-inch high (about 2 meters). Moreover, they go together and are pretty much a stable commodity. I did not buy these all at once but as I needed them. I am happy to see IKEA still manufactures and sells these and the price has been stable over many years.

Step 2 – Economically accumulate books

The most economical way to stock your library is to buy used books. When you think about it, books in libraries have been there for years or even decades and have been used by many. So look for used books and you’ll save a lot. Moreover, some books are out-of-print so used copies are often the only thing available. From my experience, most used books I’ve purchased are in remarkably good shape. I’ve only had a few that were pretty shopworn but even then, they were useable.

engineering books — Solverware Engineering Library

I’ve found Amazon.com is a good place to start but you can often find a better price on some competitor sites. I’ve bought books from each of these websites:

amazon.com
ebay.com
alibris.com
abebooks.com

Ebay allows you to put a watch on subjects and I have a few of these still active. I receive an email with new listings of books of that type and it often gives you an opportunity to snag a lower-priced book before someone else grabs it.

We own a domain engbookstore.com, currently being developed, where we plan to let you add a watch for a book and we will regularly canvas leading book websites to find a match that meets your criteria of price. If so, you’ll get an alert by email. You’ll also be able to search for a specific book and we will canvas a number of booksellers to find copies and pricing, saving you the trouble of going to several websites.

Digital Books

We are in a digital age and many books are now available in electronic form with the Amazon Kindle, iPads and other digital devices holding such content. From a visit the University of California San Diego (UCSD) campus, I asked a few students about how many of their books were electronic and the answer was one-half. That was three of fours ago. I’m guessing there are even fewer and fewer hard books today.

While digital books have some definite advantages, they do have some downsides. Such books are subject to deletion or even editing (think censorship). Amazon can remove books from your Kindle. A physical book does not have that downside. Moreover, there are events that could happen, albeit low probability, which would wipe out electronics and stored media. One such event is an EMP attack on a country. But even not-so-rare solar events, such as a Carrington event, could wreak much damage. Such an event happened in 1859 when computers did not exist so the event, while noticed by astronomers and scientists of the day, did not disrupt life.

Solid books simply have a persistence aspect to them that digital media does not. However, you can’t easily carry more than a few solid books and this is where a Kindle shines. You can literally have a library in the palm of your hand and that may well be as important an invention as the printing press.

Good reading!

What is different about engineering apps?

April 10, 2018 By Mike S. Leave a Comment

Engineering and scientific applications in many ways were the first software applications ever created. The language Fortran, which incidentally stands for “Formula Translation,” came out 61 years ago in April 1957. The business language COBOL came out two years later in 1959. The term “software” didn’t exist before 1958. Back in these days there was no such thing as a “user interface.” The term “user friendly” didn’t appear until 1972! Obviously we had an interface but it was “horse and buggy” relying on IBM punch cards and printouts. This was the only way to interact with computers. My own experience began in 1978 when I took a college class in Fortran 66, a version of Fortran that came out in 1966. Fortran IV came out that same year and it added a few language constructs, like IF-THEN-ELSE.

Software is software in many respects, regardless of the type of application. However, engineering software does have unique aspects that other software does not have. All applications today have a user interface. And all applications usually take some data and store it in some fashion. But when you get right down to it, most software simply takes data and stores it for later retrieval. As an example, let’s take banking software. You can log into Bank of America or Wells Fargo or your local credit union’s website and see a time-sorted list of your credits and debits. That’s essentially an application that spits back to you that which was input earlier. That’s kind of like a mirror. But little or no work is done! Even sophisticated applications like Facebook are merely keeping a record of communications among many people. Now there is real work being done behind the scenes in determining which ads appear for each user and I’m sure these algorithms are doing some complex tasks.

Doing Work

On the other hand, engineering applications actually do real work! You can design a heat exchanger and use engineering algorithms to predict how that heat exchanger will perform once built! Or you can use wind loading software to find out if your structure, as designed, will hold up to Florida hurricanes. That’s vital work and that’s what engineering applications have done for decades. Many applications utilize numerical methods which permit calculations that would be difficult if not impossible to perform by hand. So engineering software utilizes algorithms that perform mathematical operations.

Unit Conversions

Science and engineering model the physical universe. As such, these applications use the language of units, i.e., a quantity of matter, energy, space (length, area, volume) and time. Unfortunately, these pesky units cause more problems than you can shake a stick at. Such errors can be incredibly costly. For example, NASA lost the 125 million dollar Mars climate orbiter spacecraft after its 286-day journey to Mars. Miscalculations from using English units rather than metric, sent the craft off-course by 60 miles. Lockheed Martin sent thruster data in English units (pounds) to NASA while NASA’s navigation team was expecting metric units (Newtons).

An axle broke on a roller-coaster in 2004 at Tokyo’s Disneyland Space Mountain. This caused the train, mid-ride, to derail. The cause was a part being the wrong size due to a conversion of the master plan (in English units) to Metric units. New axels were ordered in 2002 using the pre-1995 English specifications rather than the Metric ones.

Finally, Air Canada Flight 143 ran out of fuel en route to Edmonton from Montreal. The fuel loading was miscalculated because of a misunderstanding of the Metric system conversion factors. Canada switched to the Metric system in 1970 and the Air Canada flight was the first to use metric units. Fortunately, the pilot was able to land the plan safely.

Data Entry

Many engineering applications require entering data that mirrors physical objects. For example, if we are specifying an object that is a circular segment, we should provide a user interface that makes it clear what data we are entering. This is best done by showing an image that changes as the value needing to be entered changes. We can do this with colors (using red as a “hot” color). Here it is clear what value should be entered.

Summary

Senior datum #1 – Engineering applications do not simply present previously entered data but perform work with inputted data.

Senior datum #2 – Unit conversions are a vital part of engineering applications. Care must be taken to ensure conversions are done properly and output data units are clearly labelled.

Senior datum #3 – Engineering applications often require entering exact physical measurements that mirror real objects. It is helpful to augment the entered data with pictures which show the user exactly what he is entering.