M. Adam Davis wrote:
> But saying, "Your design is stupid" is tantamount to saying that the
> person who designed it is stupid.

Absolutely not.

> Why not replace "Your design is stupid" with "I believe you could
> improve the design by x, y, or z", ...

It all depends on how much effort it's worth going thru.  Is this generally
a good engineer who just didn't think of a better way, or is this a moron
that shouldn't be here in the first place and this design is a good
opportunity to fix that?  If the point is to get the moron canned, then
being blunt but calm, factual, and correct is often a good way to get him to
overreact and hang himself.  Bad engineers and emotional reactions tend to
go hand in hand.

Another point to consider is who is in the room.  I've been in situations
where management suspected a problem and was just waiting for someone
outside to say "that's really dumb", and of course be able to justify it
technically.

Usually everyone other then the moron appreciates bluntness as long as it's
factual and not done to be nasty.  Of course you have to right, so this
isn't for the timid or incompetent.  Not too long ago I was in a situation
brought in initially to help with PIC code.  Of course I had to look over
the schematic to understand what the PIC had to do.  I saw several thing in
the schematic that said "moron" to me.  I asked a bunch of questions before
deciding that was the case or not.  Once I had all the facts, it was clear
that "moron" was the appropriate evaluation.  The moron wasn't there, in
fact I never met him or communicated with him.  I told the people there all
the things wrong with the design, some of which were causing the problems
they brought me in to help with, and problems they didn't know about yet but
would occur in production and in the field.  They really had no idea.  Of
course I backed up everything with explanations of why the current design
was bad and how things would fail.  One of the people there had a PhD in
physics, and the other a BS in EE.  They understood.  After I had a chance
to give it some thought, I proposed a different architecture.  That's what
they went with, right after firing the moron.  I designed two of the three
boards and helped the EE with the third.  Now I'm their external EE and PIC
expert, and they've been good customers since.

Of coures the reverse can happen too.  I was recently at a prospect that
needed to replace a 15 year old controller board because they can't get
parts anymore.  I was impressed with how advanced the design was for 15
years ago, and told them that.  I think that gave me some credibility since
the design was well regarded internally (which I didn't know at the time).


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