Is that the engineers fault? Or is that the people who are supposed to check for usability after the engineer is done designing the functional aspects? Because it’s not usually an engineer’s job to do this…
Basic product testing is the foundation of manufacturing, an error like this doesn’t get all the way through production and it still be just the engineers fault.
Checking for usability is one of the key parts of design iteration, which is done by product engineers. Source: am product engineer
Former mechanical design engineer checking in as well: can confirm, the engineer’s fault here.
You don’t just design it just to work, a hobbyist can do that.
Edit: Not saying I have never made a mistake, everyone makes mistakes. And of course in a proper (especially big) design department someone always cross checks your work, so there must’ve been multiple people to blame. But mistakes happen and that alone is no reason to fire someone.
In my first job a senior told me that you will experience making an expensive mistake and that it’ll be a good lesson (I did).
Yes, it’s the engineer’s fault. OTOH, it’s QA’s fault for not catching that mistake, and the company’s fault for releasing a product that wasn’t properly tested.
We’re talking about Cisco here, a company that sells millions of units. The more units you expect to sell, the more extensive your QA procedures need to be. It’s not like this is their first piece of networking gear either. Maybe they’ve never had this specific error before, but surely they’ve had errors caused by people using a variety of different kinds of ethernet cables. I would imagine they have tests where they plug a dozen different kinds of ethernet cables into every new product they make just to ensure that a cable that has given them problems before doesn’t have issues with this new piece of gear.
When a problem like this is caught by QA people, it’s mostly the engineer’s fault for a design mistake. When these errors are caught in the wild by customers, it’s the company’s fault for a screw-up somewhere in their QA / test / release procedures.
Yes it is the engineers fault, but even then there should have been multiple people that should have caught such an issue along the way.
As an engineer, I agree.
You cannot be a layer of security if your attitude is, “this is someone else’s problem”.
The swiss cheese model of security is what I go by. Yes, no one is perfect, but that’s precisely why every single person needs to actually give a damn. (and why people should be paid enough to care) The more layers of protection from catastrophe, the better.
Giving in because others are involved is literally Bystander Effect-ing your job effectiveness. Only idiots should be OK with, “this is someone else’s fault.”
No, this is also other peoples’ fault, but make no mistake: the engineer is on that list.
Probably both, but you’re right, there’s definitely a qa problem here
It’s very strange engineer, if he doesn’t aware of RJ45 connector form-factors.
Hey I’m not absolving the engineer for not doing basic interference checks but I’m saying it’s also somebody else’s job I’m sure, Cisco’s not a small company.
What’s the point of mentioning that it’s someone else job too?
What’s the point of putting it all on the engineer?
Who’s putting it all on the engineer?
It literally says “at least you’re not the Cisco design engineer…”
And? It showcases engineer fault, but how do it shift all blame to him?
Sounds exactly like something an engineer would say.
Engineer-adjacent haha
Some mistakes make you want the person responsible fired, but some mistakes are SO bad that you actually feel sorry for them instead. This falls into the second category.
That’s because a flaw like this is the result of SYSTEMATIC failure, not any one person. Who reviewed these designs? Who was responsible for usability testing? Who reviewed those plans? Was usability testing even performed?
Was usability testing even performed?
If it was, it wasn’t tested with every cable type or they would have discovered this issue.
Some places don’t fire unless the issue is repeated, client-facing, or willfully dangerous (like assaulting co-workers). The theory is: This is the first time this has happened - we learned from it, the engineer specifically probably learned from it. This won’t happen again.
/r/crappydesign
Oh wait, this isn’t the Reddit anymore.
- !crappydesign@sh.itjust.works
- !assholedesign@lemmy.ml
- !assholedesign@lemmy.world
- !crappydesign@zerobytes.monster
Did I do that right?
This reminds me of Macintosh computers from the late '80s/early '90s. The disk drive had no physical eject button and the power button for the computer was a big knob sticking out right below the disk drive. Coming from the PC world, it took me a couple of days to learn to stop turning off the computer every time I tried to eject the disk.
Ofc it’s Cisco
that’s how you reset a product line
Was there a recall? I remember them sending out an advisory of the default behavior (and how to disable it), then changing the default behavior in software.
Cisco and Juniper need to die as entities like 5 years ago. They’re single-handedly holding back all of networking from entering the modern era of computing.
Care to elaborate? Sounds like an interesting story.
Honestly can’t elaborate too much as I was only a junior network guy at best and it’s been a few years since that. But coming from a world of infrastructure as code and CI/CD deployment strategies, the shit we had to do to manage changes on Cisco and juniper switches was ridiculous. It was like stepping back into the stone age.
Sounds more like arrogant ignorance
You must not work in enterprise IT. Every lower level network engineer says this until they gain more skills and experience with them. Then they realize the full extent of features Cisco and Juniper support that others don’t
Surprising opinion, I was only a junior in my brief stint at networking but all my seniors shared this opinion.
