The Evolution Of Useful Things
Henry Petroski
Read July 2008
Copy borrowed from my dad
Essay written Sunday, August 24th, 2008
Not as interesting as it really should have been. The author, as an engineer, writes like you might expect an engineer to write. Elaborately constructed sentences which get the job done but leave you winded afterwards. This was rather a disappointment. I also borrowed Petroski's book To Engineer Is Human, which didn't seem as interesting and in fact I never got past the first chapter. I don't think I've even returned it to my dad. He doesn't miss it.
Maybe I would have liked this more if I wasn't a failed engineer myself. Perhaps I have an unhealthy disillusionment with engineering. Certainly this book with all its commentary on design brought back to me unpleasant memories of my senior design lab textbook, which was horribly abstract and philosophical and disturbing. Made me feel like I was in a seminar for project managers, which in fact I was, because what is an engineering student but a future engineer, and what is an engineer but a future project manager?
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