On the fence

[lemontea]

(05-10-2014 05:28 AM)Craig Thomas Wrote:  You are certainly correct. When it comes to large, modern corporations I HAVE gotten pretty cynical. 20 years at the Boeing Company living Dilbert's life will do that.

Part of me is thinking that those "good old days" of engineering by engineers who work inside large corporations, who care, are being gradually supplanted by a totally new paradigm, which we see already alive and well here, with the community engineering and production of the WP 34S. This "megatrend" is borne out by the explosion of interest and talent across the globe by social networking* connected enthusiasts (look at the whole MAKER phenomenon).

Even this website is part of that new paradigm. Essentially what I see is a group of people who care. The only problem that would constrain this is the fact we all are distracted by having to make a living by other means (the traditional corporate engineer makes his/her living as part of the engineering process, but now that seems to have become separated).

I'm not saying that it is better this way, but it seems that it is what it is (and possibly actually a response to the lackluster results from large corps; indeed, the WP 34S is precisely a response to that, for example; other examples, especially in the software world, abound).

*only when the medium is not being used for keeping track of the latest antics by movie stars and other so-called celebrities