Why not broaden Electrical Engineering to Engineering?

This has been proposed before https://meta.codidact.com/posts/74999. My comment then was:

I'm a dipl. computer engineer and if you ask me what an "engineering site" is about, I wouldn't be able to answer. The only thing that brings all the diverse engineering disciplines together is structured workflow, scientific methods, critical thinking and other broad terms. Plus a tonne of math. So what would this site really be about, without getting too broad, fuzzy and subjective?

Since then we've launched a math site, so that part is already covered.

Lately though, I've been sour over various RL projects and been saying "can we please hand this project over to engineers instead". But if I step back and consider that line, what I actually meant with it is: have someone with relevant technical competence write a specification and make the product design.

So such a site could be about proper project management I suppose? That is, project management with the aim to produce a working, safe and legal product, rather than with the aim to produce an agile lean TDD workflow.

posted over 3 years ago

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Lundin‭

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The scope of the Electrical Engineering community is up to them. If you want to propose changes, you should ask on their meta. We don't impose scope on communities; we allow communities to define their own boundaries.

The EE community was specifically proposed as EE and not general. The proposal rejected the idea of EE being part of a general engineering community; the concern is that "engineering" is too broad. There is also a proposal for a general engineering community, though it has not gained much traction so far.

It can be hard to find the right level of generality. Software Development seems broad; it encompasses all technologies, design processes, tools, testing, and more. You might look at that and think "well, if it works for them, then we can combine all types of engineering in one place".

In my experience, it comes down to how much commonality there is in the target audience. Software developers work with many technologies, languages, tools, and processes over the course of a career, so a seasoned C++ developer can help a new QA person with a git question. Those topics are related and interconnected. From what I understand (from the outside), that kind of cohesion doesn't exist (or isn't very strong) among chemical and structural and mechanical engineers. It might feel more like three groups hanging out together in the same place, each looking at a third of the activity. That makes it harder to build a shared community. On the other hand, if there are enough of any one of those groups and they want a place of their own, they can focus on their area, like EE has chosen to do.

There's no one right level of generality or specificity. It's fine to ask a community if boundaries could be adjusted. Ultimately it's up to the people in the affected community to decide what's in and what's out.

posted over 3 years ago

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Monica Cellio‭ staff

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You have touched on two different topics, neither of which belong here.

• Scope of the Electrical Engineering site

  As Monica has already explained, this is up to the users of the site. The right place to discuss that is in the Meta category of the EE site.

• Having a general Engineering site

  That would be a site proposal, and as such belong in the Site Proposals category of this site. I vaguely remember there was a previous proposal for an engineering site, or at least something similar. If you do propose an engineering site, you should first look at the history of similar proposals. Make sure you're not just proposing a duplicate, or explain how your proposal is different.

I have some engineering, non electric, questions that I've hankered to ask.

If this is strictly true, then Codidact currently has no place for you to ask those questions. We do have a physics site. If you can phrase questions to be about the underlying technology rather than implementation issues, then it might be appropriate to ask there.

posted over 3 years ago

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3y ago

Olin Lathrop‭

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