In my experience, new ideas are mostly generated by people who are involved in non-software stuff

A software engineer isn't going to come up with a revolutionary new mining technique or robot or something. But someone who works at a mine might. Previously those people would go find a software engineer to try and validate their idea. Now they will go to AI

I dunno. Maybe I'm wrong, but I just don't see software engineers as being the best people to generate a lot of new ideas for domains outside of software engineering

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jodacola an hour ago | parent | next [-]

This is why I have always advocated for getting my software engineers away from code occasionally and out into the field into whatever domain in which we're working.

We need to experience and see how the world actually works, the pain people are actually experiencing. I deeply believe we build better software that way.

Have a software engineer working for a mining company that's a good candidate to drag out into the field for a bit? Get 'em out there, encourage them to ask tons of questions.

Real example: my wife is a nurse who works for an insurance company to coordinate care for injured workers to help maximize their recoveries. I hear a ton about the stuff she has to do, and just having her tell me about how things work has given me a glut of ideas of how I could help her bypass all the administrivia so she can focus on helping the folks she's really passionate about helping. Wouldn't have had any idea about any of this, otherwise. Unfortunately for her, I don't work for her company so can do nothing about it, but the ideas!

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yolp5 an hour ago | parent [-]

> We need to experience and see how the world actually works, the pain people are actually experiencing. I deeply believe we build better software that way.

90% of the time when you really break down the "real" problems. You learned they aren't gon a be fixed by fucking software.

	▲	jodacola an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I wholeheartedly agree with you that software isn't the answer for everything; engineering teams get so deep in building that's all they can think of when faced with a business problem. Less software coupled with operational changes would have helped many organizations I've witnessed across my career, but that's not politically palatable in a lot of places.

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simonw an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I think the best ideas come from people who have both domain knowledge and an understanding of what's possible. Computer science gives you the latter.

If I was going through university right now I'd want to double-major in computer science and something else.

	▲	whstl 37 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I agree. Domain expertise is good, but coupled with software knowledge is almost a superpower, when it comes to software projects. I have seen projects that took 6 months when done by 1 expert + 1 engineer taking mere weeks when done by a single person who were good at both, in a competitor.