Engineering and Art

Engineering's use of mathematics and science exposes it to the criticism that it is dry that it saps the artistic elements out of structures that are engineered. The same criticism has been applied to software engineering. How true is this criticism? Does engineering exclude aesthetics?

Far from being antithetical to aesthetics, engineering is largely concerned with all aspects of design, including aesthetic aspects. Its designs aren't just limited to shapes and colors. Engineers design everything from electronic circuits to load-bearing beams to vehicles that land on the moon. As Samuel C. Florman says in The Existential Pleasures of Engineering, "Creative design is the central mission of the professional engineer."

Consider a comparison of two well-known buildings, the Reims Cathedral and the Sydney Opera House. The Reims Cathedral, shown in Figure 17-1, was completed about 1290; the Sydney Opera House, shown in Figure 17-2, in 1973. The Reims Cathedral was designed to use materials whose properties were understood (more or less) at the time.

Figure 17-1. Reims Cathedral, Reims, France. An example of art without very well developed engineering.[6]

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Figure 17-2. Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia. An example of the dependence of art upon engineering.[7]

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The Sydney Opera House was constructed 700 years after the Reims Cathedral. As you can see in Figure 17-2, it's stylistically quite different from the Reims Cathedral. Its architects used modern materials such as steel and reinforced concrete, and they employed engineering techniques including computer modeling to determine how little material could safely be used.

Which building you prefer is a matter of taste, but which building can actually be built is a matter of engineering. It would be possible for modern builders to construct another Reims Cathedral, but it would not have been possible for 13th century builders to construct a Sydney Opera House. The reason the Sydney Opera House could not be built in the 13th century was not a lack of art, but the lack of engineering. We've all seen ugly buildings in which artistic considerations lost a battle with engineering economy, or in which aesthetics appear not to have been considered at all. Engineering without art can be ugly, but art without engineering may be impossible. Engineering does not constrain artistic possibilities. The lack of engineering constrains artistic possibilities.

So it is with modern software systems. The level of engineering prowess determines how large a software system can be built successfully, how easy it will be to use, how fast it will operate, how many errors it will contain, and how well it will cooperate with other systems. Software includes many aesthetic elements, and software developers have no lack of artistic ambition. What we in the software industry sometimes lack is the engineering techniques that enable us to realize some of our grandest aesthetic aspirations.



Professional Software Development(c) Shorter Schedules, Higher Quality Products, More Successful Projects, [... ]reers
Professional Software Development(c) Shorter Schedules, Higher Quality Products, More Successful Projects, [... ]reers
ISBN: N/A
EAN: N/A
Year: 2005
Pages: 164

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