Posted by Ben C on 10/12/73 12:01

On 2008-01-27, dorayme <doraymeRidThis@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
> In article <Xns9A31D3D4F61C5nanopandaneredbojias@85.214.90.236>,
> Neredbojias <monstersquasher@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> > IS THE BOTTOM AN ENGINEERING OR DESIGN DECISION?
>>
>> It's not any kind of "decision"! It's an integral part of a cup.
>
> Let us take these two answers of yours in turn:
>
> One, a decision to include or not include a feature is not
> necessarily a conscious one, not necessarily one that is
> reflected upon. But if it is a feature that could be left out,
> but is not left out, then a decision to include it has been made.
> If you don't like the word "decision" here, you can substitute
> another one (you like making up words, you will enjoy it)

I'm not sure you can really have such a thing as an unconscious
decision, any more than you can have an unconscious thought, a circle
that isn't round, or a God that doesn't exist.

Some decisions can be made very quickly, like which way to hit the ball
in a game of tennis, but perhaps those are better called subconscious
rather than unconscious.

[...]
> A cup could be designed without a bottom. For any number of
> purposes. When a cup creator decides to put a bottom on a cup, as
> he or she usually does, is this a design or engineering decision?
>
> It is a tricky subject
[...]

One distinction between design and engineering is that design is usually
supposed to be done earlier in the process and take the form of some
kind of plan. Engineering is then a matter of filling in the details.

If you ever did woodworking at school they always made you attempt to
draw a picture of what you were going to make before sawing up any wood.
This was intended to teach the importance of design and to save wood.

The concept of design then extends to the idea of thinking more about
things rather than just dashing off the first thing that works. Hence an
iPod is said to be designed rather than merely engineered because they
thought about details such as whether it's better to have a big play
button on the front or to make play an option in a menu system three or
four levels deep.

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