Some Much Needed Humor; Civil Tech Needs Software Engineering

"Why you should not learn to code. ("Just stop already, it's too hard.")"

Techlead created this masterpiece of dry wit yesterday and it already has 21k+ views. It's a true gem.

Please check it out here.

Why Software Engineering Must Intersect with Civil Technology

I always thought that the software engineering field had a lot to show us civil techs on how to do get things done on time, with less effort, and with style.

First of all, good coders make their work readable, and with helpful comments peppered throughout their work. Compare this to a typical design drawing in a large projects with contributions from several techs. It take some real skill to be able to stitch together what corridor feeds of which surface using which targets etc. Add in a couple of tight deadlines and things can resemble a messy pizza real quickly. Now coding has its own share of nightmare stories I'm sure but I would bet money that pound-for-pound, coding projects are a lot more readable and cleaner than a Civil3D project simply because code has to be passed through a rather unforgiving machine checks while CAD projects are checked by much more forgiving (and often tired) colleagues.

Second, it seems like coders have really integrated some project-level efficiencies into their practice at a large scale. Versioning is rigorous, and having real implementations of agile project management practices are widespread. Even one or two man operations tend to be organized from bottom up by the basic requirements of GitHub if nothing else.

Third, they really have the tools to leverage automation, machine learning, data structures, and a host of very powerful tools that they are able to tweak in virtually any direction. This is a far cry from being limited by established workflows of ready-made software packages that pervades CAD.

I mean, all of these things are already well known by experienced GIS folks to a large extent since the coding culture seems to be alive and well in that area (MapguideOS and QGIS platforms, for example). AutoCAD folks, aside from the lisp/VBA gurus, do not have much intersection with coding culture.

These are some of the reasons why I decided to jump into coding in a deep way rather than just tinkering with it to modify other people's work. I will go more into the roadmap I'm on in another blog.

What's your judgment on this topic? Do you think that I'm on the right track?

Please feel free to share and comment, and thanks for the read.

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