Build In Order to Learn // In Order to Build
I'm thinking about that Fred Brooks quote, the engineer learns in order to build, and the scientist builds in order to learn. And I've often been bothered by this quote, trying to place myself as either an engineer or a scientist. I love both learning and I love building, and so it's hard to choose between these two activities. Also, as the Fred Brooks quote implies, the two activities inform and mutually reinforce one another.
The engineer has much learning to do in order to be able to build, and their building is often improved by more learning. The scientist, on the other hand, can't truly learn unless he builds. Much of their experimentation and understanding the things that they think they understand have to be embodied in actual systems and real world things that test their theories and put their learning to the test, proving it or not proving it.
And so I found myself at this weird place of wondering, is what I'm doing research? Am I more of a scientist right now? Or is what I'm doing engineering? And I'm actually trying to build a system that actually works, not just learn from building the system.
What I realized in struggling with this over the last two years is that what that build-learn actually describes is a loop where you learn something and then you build based on what you've learned. And that building also helps you to learn something, which you can then use to build and learn and build and learn. And you go around and around this loop, these things enforcing each other.
And what Fred was saying with the quote is that your role as either a scientist or an engineer is all about your end goal. What are you trying to accomplish? For a scientist, they are actually trying to accomplish learning. They're extending the body of knowledge that is known by humankind.
For an engineer, their goal in learning is to actually build a thing. They want something to exist in the world, and they are using their learning to make that happen. Now, as we've already covered, both the scientist and the engineer have to learn and build in their process. But the scientist feels like they're done once they've learned, whereas the engineer only feels like they're done once they've built.
So where do I sit? One of the things that I've learned about myself, realized about myself, is that I love building things. And when it comes to what most motivates me, building things in the real world is the most exciting thing. Now, this turns out to be the same reason that I left academia in 2007. I realized that the incentives of working in an academic environment were going to push me to building, I mean, learning without building, and would not reward my desire to learn. So I left academia and became an engineer. The thing that was true then is still true. I still love learning for the sake of building new things. And I think what's changed is the kind of things that I want to build are things that no one really knows for sure how to build. And so while I'm still an engineer, I'm engaging in a very scientific activity at times of extending the capabilities of what is possible to build by learning about new ways to do things and what's the way that we can make things happen.
But this leads to, and the goal is always to build. And so while I switch into scientist mode at times, and I'm actually in scientist mode on a project that I'm on right now, the goal is always building. And so if I had to come down on that Fred Brooks quote, I was classifying myself as either a scientist or an engineer. I think ultimately I'm an engineer. I now know a little bit more about what it looks like to be a scientist for a time to inform what needs to be built.