Comment by oc1
5 months ago
<< According to official records, the design for the bridge shifted multiple times over the past seven years, largely due to conflicts between the Public Works Department (PWD) and the Railways. The two agencies couldn’t agree on how to share land, and in trying to work around both railway property and the new Metro line, they ended up producing a final layout with an abrupt 90-degree angle.
I love that mindset. Europeans would have simply refused and 100 years later it would have probably been build after all legal has been cleared. Indians instead never say no. That's how you build software, so why not bridges.
Shouldn't the bureaucracies be penalized, instead of the poor engineers?
The engineers built the 90-degree layout specified by their clients!
I wouldn't be surprised if there's a paper trail documenting the engineers' objections, signed and notarized by the clients.
It's hard for me to judge the engineers without knowing more.
No. I'm a licensed civil engineer in the US. The license comes with an explicit duty to the public, to uphold public safety. I am in responsible charge of the work I produce and personally liable for the safety of that work, in perpetuity, and it SHOULD be that way. Any plans that I produce are subject to that standard.
India has a similar system for public works projects where a licensed engineer MUST supervise the work.
Frankly, sometimes I think the software world would be a lot better off with a similar system.
This doesn't look unsafe though, just inconvenient.
Both in the US[1] and UK[2] you can find bridges with actual 90-degree angles. The one in India[3] is more like 75 degrees.
[1]https://maps.app.goo.gl/3CBqVHbVEtonHjcr9 [2]https://maps.app.goo.gl/8cVB44VDJRPadY6s6 [3]https://maps.app.goo.gl/ikPSmLEGYwVJLqDz7
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I took an extra year and a half in college to get an ABET-accredited EE/CS degree instead of the CS degree that wasn't, which is a prerequisite for the Professional Engineer exam.
The problem with all things engineering with systems and/or software is there are zillions of tools x several options x infinitely unique backgrounds, most of which are informal. There isn't nearly enough standardization, scant convention over configuration, and not nearly enough formal, rigorous (testing) methodology even where it's needed.
~20 years ago, I had multiple long talks with an applied systems prof about the constraints, barriers, and motivations on the professionalization of software/systems engineering.
the article says:
> the final result “is neither fulfilling the functional requirement nor safe for road users.”
Customers can say all sorts of crazy things, they havo no knowledge of what's a good design or not. It's up to engineers to ensure design is safe. If an engineer knowigly signs-off on the design that is not safe, they deserve all the punishment.
Sometimes we are paid to say “no”.
Depends entirely on the culture. Some cultures saying “no” is simply not what you do.
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More often we are paid to say “yes”
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This is another variant of the argument who should business corporations serve. On one side, you have the argument the client or stockholder is the only stakeholder. (An extreme example is the Sackler's Purdue Pharma peddling Oxycontin which delighted stockholders for a while). On the other side, you have the argument there are many stakeholders including customers, employees, and the community they live in. (An extreme example of this was Google who promised to do good for society and treat their developers as prized not commodities; now Google appears to swinging to the other direction.)
It depends on what you expect from your engineers and how hierarchy works. It is a cultural thing I guess.
Do you expect engineers to do what you ask them to do, no matter how stupid. If you do and your engineers execute your stupid orders, then you are at fault. It was your job to have common sense, ask the right people, etc... You failed.
Now you may expect your engineers to call you and your stupid plans out, and if they didn't, it is their fault. They should have called you out and they didn't. They failed.
In the west, we usually expect the latter, so engineers should certainly be penalized. In India, I don't know.
They worked with the land they were allowed to use, and it ended up like this. Not even a money issue, just bureaus refusing to cooperate.
I think that's the parent's point, someone should have just said No. If you have to sacrifice so much due to whatever constraints you face, the resulting solution usually is not going to solve the original problem very well.
At the very least, I would have let it be known that I did not think the resulting bridge was a good design for traffic and has only been designed to appease the process. "I do not recommend constructing this design" would have been my CYA.
Someone should just say no to dark patterns, someone should just say no to layoffs that aren't actually necessary but bump share price, why aren't we all saying no more? Why does it have to be this obvious for this forum to conclude "Engineers should say no."
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I hate software built like this, it's hell and you end up with 4 different designs in your app by the time you hit production.
That's the kind of app that needs internal audit, where some objects are audited, but as the data is never used, the audit in fact only works on a fifth of the project and is never used.
Please say 'no' more often.
You’re right but:
https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2024/07/09/new-ghent-motorway-b...
Belgium has run into the same problem and they went on with it
The only way it could get funnier is if the roadway had to be inverted 180 degrees like a roller coaster at some point.
Or a large pole with seven cables from its tip were installed at the vertex, making the project a literal suspension bridge.
This is a consequence of when there's neither collaboration or reasonableness between stakeholders, and when a project is driven forward by a bureaucracy. Those doing the actual work are ordered to do the impossible, even if the result under the given constraints is totally pointless.
The demand for yes-men stays huge. A manager comes, he wants yes-men. Things fail. Someone gets blamed and removed, maybe the manager himself. The circus continues. I wonder why capitalism doesn't remove this obvious inefficiency, but rather seems to promote it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if having bridges with 90 degrees angles is often better than having no bridges.
Government bureaucracies are rather far from "capitalism".
Yes but this problem exists in capitalism too. Name one big company that doesn't suffer from this issue.
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yeah lovely mindset now the engineers will go to jail
Good, they approved an design that's unsafe for road users. Better to put engineers in jail, instead of someone dying from car crash on unsafe bridge.
On the other hand the Indians have blacklisted the firms involved.
The European mindset seems to be to let them keep doing stuff - e.g. Fujitsu in the UK.
Oh don't worry.
In India, land is the most valuable thing in general and all land/housing/infra related industries are infested with politicians.
There are exceptions of course, and unless this company is one, they'll just be back with a new name, and the political party will be advertising to the public how they're so unbiased that they shut down the company of their own political brother.
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