Hybrid Engineering
What if you could build the software and the device to run it all at the same time? What would that do to your imagination? Right now, when you want to write an application, chances are good you have the device configuration already established. But what if you had the opportunity to design the target device and its capabilities at the same time. Sounds a little chicken-and-egg but my feeling is that, if it were possible, we could start seeing a new type of engineer, a hybrid software/hardware engineer, that could design new categories of applications quickly.
July 22nd, 2007 at 6:19 pm
You’re ringing my bell. I am THE hybrid engineer. That’s because I had to be. But, it hasn’t always been fun, especially working for others. Wouldn’t you think a person who had the education and the demonstrated experience to tear through both software and hardware aspects of a design, would be valued by an employer? Not. What I found was, that SW engineers thought I was a HW engineer that knew something about SW, and the HW guys thought I was a SW engineer that knew something about HW. No one thought I was particularly skilled at either and wouldn’t give me a chance.
So, that’s why I work for myself. I do the SolidWorks and the OrCAD and C# and the assembly and the lab equipment, because I have to.
The reason I am telling you this about myself, is to say that you are absolutely correct that such a person is capable of a lot. But there are also problems. The more you know, the more ideas you have. You can’t do them all. You get excited about fantastic things but no one knows what you’re talking about. Another problem is that you tend to fall into the trap of trying to do everything yourself. This is my curse. I have two projects now, each of which are easily 100M businesses, and I am constantly tempted to do more and more myself, because I can. I can take an idea and do the HW, the SW, the graphics, the packaging, all of it. Because I did it before. But, I just wanted to tell you the rose has thorns.
July 26th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
SteveS – thanks for the comment. It’s great to know that hybrid engineers actually exist. Though by the sounds of it, you’ve got your hands full!
August 20th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
Ah, we do it here all the time.
You start to think about HW and SW partitioning.
You first get everything in SW coz it’s easy and quick; and then you profile your software to accelerate (into HW) the critical sections.
FPGAs are so awesome!
August 31st, 2007 at 8:12 pm
These are great comments. I wonder if there’s more here than I initially thought. I’d love to hear from more people who think they’re already doing this type of activity. I think it’s the tip of the iceberg. I truly believe that the future belongs to those who can work easily at this level of abstraction.