As many an older engineer will testify, form is often an overlooked part of 
function. It's a myopic view of the system requirements that separates the two.

If the goal is to have happy customers, or happy users, or sell the maximum 
amount of widgets, and it always boils down to that or the engineer doesn't get 
paid, form and function go hand in hand. A device (or piece of software) that 
doesn't get used as much as could be isn't the best engineered device for the 
job. It may be that some of the criteria are outside of the engineer's 
specialty, but that shouldn't place it outside his/her responsibility.

The most fru-fru example I can think of right now would be a hood ornament on a 
car. They exist, so it isn't invention or unseen possibility, but it is pretty 
much pure 'form' and not much function. The engineer has as much reason to find 
out if, or what kind of, ornament improves sales from a specialist as he does 
to consult structural engineers for fender ideas or electrical engineers for 
connectors and systems. Then, he applies the 'system' requirement of maximizing 
sales (a requirement of any business or product) with engineering to design an 
ornament that is consistent with other design goals (wind resistance perhaps) 
and good practice for manufacturing and useful life.

I've found that the engineers that seem to get told "design what we tell you to 
inside the box" aren't very good at articulating why their views on the rest of 
the box are relevant or impact the common goal.

So, as an engineer, I value function with form, knowing that at least where 
humans are involved (even human engineers) there are subtle efficiencies to be 
had throughout the whole of the lifetime of whatever device or software I 
design that aren't 'just' form or function alone. I also benefit from these 
efficiencies (even as an engineer) should I be the engineer who has to use it.


Peter Onion wrote:
> On Sun, 2008-03-30 at 09:51 -0400, Dr Skip wrote:
> 
> Probably because this list is mostly populated by engineers, who value
> function over form :)
> 
> PeterO
> 
> 
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