Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design [pdf]

 (ece.uvic.ca)

47 points | by tosh 2 hours ago

4 comments

  • Sharlin 44 minutes ago
    The first law already gives a good reason why software "engineering" is rarely actually engineering.
    [-]
    • PxldLtd 40 minutes ago
      Almost all the laws are great guidance for Software dev to be honest and idiomatic to a lot of what's banded around today as good practice.
  • joha4270 1 hour ago
    While this PDF might be new, Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design dates back to 2003.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20031101212246/https://spacecraf...

  • z3t4 26 minutes ago
    I like systems that are maintence free and easily replaceable. My experience so far in software engineering is that technologies die, so it should also be easy to replace the tecnology, like the hardware it runs on, the platform/os, the programming language and the framework.
  • num42 24 minutes ago
    TL;DR:

    Minimize negative(painful) notions as much as possible, ideally approaching zero, while maximizing positive (pleasurable) notions.

    Minimize negative(painful) notions: Uncertainty, Chaotic behavior, Randomness, Non-deterministic, Instability, Cost, Energy losses, Time consumption, Resource usage, Excessive complexity,

    Maximize positive(Pleasure) notions: Reliability, Efficiency, Deterministic, Predictability, Precision, Accuracy, Verification, Validation, Safety, Stability, Simplicity (lower complexity),