You might notice that these real engineering jobs also don't have a way to verify the product via tests like that though, which was my point.
And that's ignoring that your statement technically isn't even true, because the engineers actually working in such fields are very few (i.e. designing bridges, airplanes etc).
The majority of them design products where safety isn't nearly as high stakes as that... And they frequently do overspec (wasting money) or underspec (increasing wastage) to boot.
This point has been severely overstated on HN, honestly.
> You might notice that these real engineering jobs also don't have a way to verify the product via tests like that though, which was my point.
The electrical engineers at my employer that design building electrical distribution systems have software that handles all of the calculations, it’s just math. Arc flash hazard analysis, breaker coordination studies, available fault current, etc. All manufacturers provide the data needed to perform these calculations for their products.
Other engineering disciplines have similar tools. Mechanical, civil, and structural engineers all use software that simulates their designs.
Okay, honestly asking: do you really think your outlined simulation meet the same bar as automated regression tests like
> E.g you technically don't need to look at the code if it's frontend code and part of the product is a e2e test which produces a video of the correct/full behavior via playwright or similar.
> Same with backend implementations which have instrumentation which expose enough tracing information to determine if the expected modules were encountered etc
If not, your quoted sentence was "tests like that". If yes... I guess we would have to disagree.
> You might notice that these real engineering jobs also don't have a way to verify the product via tests though, which was my point.
Are you sure? Simulators and prototypes abound. By the time you’re building the real, it’s more like rehearsal and solving a fe problems instead of every intricacy in the formula.
