intuitive engineering

“intuitive engineering” describes taking physical structure and system design out of the lego or erector set viewpoint — where you piece things together one-by-one — and into an understanding of the art of engineering. Watch really complex systems, say a network, for awhile and you find unexpected interactions become normal as complexity increases.

First is avoiding wherever possible, complexity, and where you find complexity, work toward a simpler design as a goal.

Second is that the elegant, aesthetically pleasing solution is also in most cases the least effort and personnel to support in the long run.

Third is to expect and deal with misteps as they show up – complex designs can present opportunities as you work through them that simply are NOT visible at the start of the project. This is true in construction, it is true in network and system design, in software design. Make that discovery part of the process, take advantage of those simplified and elegant changes as they present themselves.

Fourth is look for the consequences several steps ahead for each decision – how locked into a design does it make you, can you live with that, is there a less restrictive/simpler/better/more elegant decision in design that can be made that doesn’t block off avenues?

I am a network engineer and systems administrator in UNIX operating systems.

I live in the Northeast.

I am currently working in Boston, MA.