nospam
In article <8lh0a9tu9ql767vl3u831ug3auer0etemq@4ax.com>, Eric Stevens <eric.stevens@sum.co.nz>wrote:

Eric Stevens
All the top drivers have consideraable insight into the operation of the car and input into the way the car is set up. No two cars in the top teams handle the same way: they have been individually setup to the requirements of the individual drivers.

nospam
they have insight in how to race and what they need out of the car.

Eric Stevens
... and how to get it out of the car.

nospam
that's called being a race car driver.

it's not called being a mechanic.

they don't need to know auto mechanics to do that, although they might want to.

see the difference?

Eric Stevens
I think you are trying to make a difference where there isn't one. If you are of above average intelligence, competitive, and have been driving racing machinery for eight or more years, why should you not have a top of te line understanding of why the car does what it does?

nospam
nothing wrong with that but that's not a requirement to be a race car driver.

Eric Stevens
The problem is that you have a narrow understanding. It's up to the architect to decide where he wants to. It's the programmer who has to take him. This only works if the architect has some understanding of what is possible.

nospam
he doesn't need to know what's possible and it's probably better if he doesn't.

Eric Stevens
Haw!

nospam
what's so funny?

Eric Stevens
The idea that a top line architect wouldn't/shouldn't have an understanding of what he can an cannot do with the tools at his disposal.

nospam
that's not what i said.

obviously they need to know how to *use* their tools.

what they don't need is how to *make* the tools, i.e., how to program a computer.

kids don't know (yet) what's possible or not and their imaginations sometimes gets adults thinking in ways they wouldn't otherwise and sometimes the kids themselves come up with new ideas the adults thought weren't possible.

he might think something is not possible and then not ask for it, not realizing that someone who knows more than he does can do it and might even have already done it in another project.

i've seen that happen a lot.

Eric Stevens
Top architects/engineers do not work that way. They are always pushing the limits.

nospam
the better ones do.

Eric Stevens
That's my point.

nospam
no it isn't. you said they *don't* work that way.

you keep changing things. hard to keep up. pick one story and stick to it.

ask for the impossible, then see how close you can get. if you have the best engineers, you might be surprised.

Eric Stevens
If you don't know what can be done, you wont't ask for it.

nospam
wrong. if you think something is impossible, you won't ask for it, then someone else comes up with a way to do it.

everything is impossible, until someone invents a way to do it.

when the iphone came out, the ceo of blackberry didn't believe any of it, saying it was not possible to make a phone that small that did all of what was demoed. since he thought it was impossible, he didn't even try.

one of many, many examples.

as i said, i've seen it happen, and it's not that rare. sometimes you have to think out of the box.

Eric Stevens
Which you can only do if you know where the box supposedly is.

nospam
nope.