Building a Cathedral without Science or Mathematics: The Engineering Method Explained

What Hacker News said

Strong rec empath-nirvana · 2023-10 · on “Pythagorean Theorem Found on Clay Tablet 1k Years Older Than Pythagoras”

What everyone is talking past here is that the Babylonians discovered what engineers call a "rule of thumb", and engineering is focused on getting things done using rules of thumb. The best possible rule of thumb is a mathematical proof or a scientific discovery, but it's by no means necessary. . Observing that something always holds and even having a formula for it is not the same thing as having a proof, and the proof is what makes it mathematics and geometry and not "just" engineering. The babylonians had a rule of thumb -- the greeks discovered the theorem -- and more than that, they seem to have invented the mathematical/geometrical proof as a concept, along with formal logic. Without t

Strong rec sublinear · 2026-06 · on “Open Source Low Tech”

As other comments have implied, but not explicitly said, they do their own engineering already with what they have. Since materials can be scarce and inconsistent, much of it is improvised. That in no way diminishes their efforts, results, or knowledge. If anything, that's way more impressive. Lots of engineers in the first world will throw a tantrum if they can't have things exactly their way and probably still make something that doesn't work as well. Entire businesses have shit their pants and gone bankrupt the moment a part is discontinued. Trying to do better than the people who live there is not only arrogant, but it's own variation of Chesterton's Fence. EDIT: I can't help myself and

Recommends mayormcmatt · 2023-05 · on “The Sourdough Framework”

Just yesterday I started watching the video series promoting Bill Hammack's book "The Things We Make" in which he discusses how many incredible ancient structures were built using rules of thumb rather than an actual understanding of the science /math underpinning their strength. Truly fascinating. [this video]

Recommends mcpackieh · 2023-09 · on “China's ancient water pipe networks”

> or building slender towers supported on intricate networks of arches without engineering calculations or even Newtonian physics. In fact engineering solutions came long before Newtonian physics. Bill Hammack aka engineerguy has a good video about this: [this video]

Recommends oscare · 2024-06 · on “Ask HN: What was your most humbling learning moment?”

Lately I've come to understand the term engineer somewhat differently from this excellent video from the 'engineerguy': [this video] He defines the Engineering Method as: 'Solving problems using rules of thumb that cause the best change in a poorly understood situation using available resources.' In that sense a Software Engineer would not necessary need to know all the complexities of the complete system to make something work as specified. And I would equate a 'Programmer' more like the Scientist or Mathematician in this case. Funny how there are so many different ways to look at a title.

Cites tobr · 2023-06 · on “A Prompt Pattern Catalog to Enhance Prompt Engineering with ChatGPT”

Matches well with the definition of the engineering method provided by Bill Hammack, “the engineer guy” [1]: > Solving problems using rules of thumb that cause the best change in a poorly understood situation using available resources. 1: [this video]

Cites empath75 · 2025-11 · on “Is Software the UFOlogy of Engineering Disciplines?”

Government did not invent the discipline of engineering. This is just completely backwards. How do you think all of those engineering organizations came up with those manuals and regulations, were they not doing any engineering until they published a manual? Complete nonsense. [this video]