Electrical Engineering

How much documentation do you have to produce in electronic engineering jobs? Because in my schoolwork we are taught to document everything we do but do you have to do as much? Such things like our projects are develop a product such as an Automatic Greenhouse Environment Control System we have to do talk about the production plans for PCB production and everything we make we then need to conclude on the project is it the same as in industry?

reemrevnivek

12:28 PM

@W5VO Guess we need to be more precise...I interpreted "top 4 excluding admins" to mean Leon, Thomas, JustJeff and myself.

You need to produce enough documentation that future designers can come along behind you and pick up where you left off almost without talking to you. At my job, we use a combination of in-code comments, schematic markup, Subversion commit logs, help documentation distributed with applications, and (primarily) a custom Redmine page with an issue tracker, wiki, news feed, and documentation store.
The vast majority of my engineering job (probably 90% vs. 10%) is not development but maintenance. The first working version is fairly simple to produce, but then it becomes an issue of training n…

If you don't have experience in industry, you really won't know what engineering is like. I strongly suggest you get an internship or co-op position, even if your school doesn't require it or offer credit for it.
Beware, though, that interns are sometimes roped into doing *only* documentation at more Dilbertian workplaces. I think that my department is fairly agile, but some companies (for example, GE Aviation, where some of my friends work) produce far more documentation.

dilbert.com/fast/2010-03-01

-1

Q: Mac OS X and avr microcontroller programming? Really? How? Can I use Xcode for this?

I know how to do this on windows but I want to know how can I do this on my Mac.

The question is poorly worded, but it could be fixed and the answers are quite wrong.
You *can* set up XCode for cross compilation (see, for example, [this Stackoverflow question](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1941494/add-a-custom-compiler-to-xcode-3-2), [this forum discussion](http://forum.soft32.com/mac/extend-Xcode-gcc-cross-compile-gcc-work-ftopict47512.html] and [this cross-compilation guide](http://www.ethernut.de/en/documents/cross-toolchain-osx.html) ). , any guide to set up an AVR (or ARM) cross-compile target for

I don't know that we want to create a whole matrix of these (CodeLite for AVR on Windows to XCode for ARM on OSX, and all the permutations in between), but I think this would be a good (pair of) questions: Understanding cross compilation and configuring IDEs for cross-compilation. Another good question would be whether or not you should hyphenate the pair of words "Cross compilation."

Whoops, that should be "target for any IDE on any platform would be constructive."

Anyways, if you agree that this pair of questions is worthwhile, do you think we should re-open and fix up the closed question?

Kortuk

1:20 PM

@reemrevnivek I follow this mentality also @Dean, alot of EEs do not, prepare to hate them. I have worked a job with a non-technical boss whom could not review output. This led to a large amount of unusable work because it was so poorly documented it was easier to redesign and redo it.

@reemrevnivek I think we need to have a long serious talk about to what point we are going to support extremely basic software questions. We are still having the problem of having too many people whom are just asking super basic questions. I am going to call it the SO affect. We are coupled to SO and are bringing alot of CS guys whom are trying to program over.

I am worried if we do not pull up our overall quality we will slowly lose our most technical users. I also think this will scare off new users.

I am on nightshift right now so I am off to bed.

reemrevnivek

2:04 PM

@Kortuk Yup, we've had this discussion many times before, but it's always ended with "yeah, we should do something about that."

3

Q: Google and the lowest common denominator

What do we feel about questions for novices? "What is Ohm's law?" "Explain the difference between AC and DC" Would we be replicating the Wikipedia page? Would multiple overlapping answers be a good or bad thing? Would beginner questions be doing someone's homework for them? I woul...

discussion novice-questions

2

Q: scope of Electronics and Robotics

I am very pleased to see the Electronics & Robotics site go live. I am not so pleased, however, to see it seeded with the content from chiphacker.com, because that content had a marked bias towards the hobbyist end of electronics. Stackoverflow has a fairly nice balance of rigorousness / acc...

discussion scope

2

Q: Seeding E&R with some high level electronics questions

While I don't have anything against the hobbyist culture, I feel that if E&R has to become a center of knowledge we will have to start ask and answer hard questions. High level theoretical topics like microelectronics, semiconductors, VLSI, embedded systems, computer organizations, robot loco...

discussion meta

Plus numerous Chat exchanges, like this one

It's also been discussed on Meta.SO here:

102

Q: Can we prevent some of the low-quality questions from entering our system?

Stack Overflow has been wildly successful. And maybe in some ways too successful. I am concerned that Stack Overflow is being inundated by a stream of low-quality questions from users who are accidentally poisoning our well -- by turning off and turning away the core answerers who do all the rea...

discussion status-completed questions new-users

and followed up in the blog here:

Stack Overflow Blog: Asking Better Questions

Posted by Jeff Atwood on October 4th, 2010

As Stack Overflow has grown, it has started to have some decidedly big city problems. The one we are most concerned about is an influx of very low quality questions.

While we still believe in editing and improving low-quality questions to make them better, there’s a fundamental mismatch in scale and effort here — bad questions, asked in bad faith, have a tendency to overwhelm the good intentions of the average Stack Overflow user. So, we’ve decided to take some steps to block bad questions before they enter our system, and save everyone some effort. …

The Meta.SO discussion is especially useful, as it highlights what's going to happen. Hopefully, we can nip this problem in the bud.

Hey, and I just found this page:

electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/how-to-ask

It lists some points on asking better questions, and should probably be linked in a comment to a bad question from a new user.

Kellenjb

2:30 PM

@reemrevnivek i believe that last link you gave is presented to everyone as the come to the site for the first time, but i would be most people dont click on it

reemrevnivek

@Kellenjb - Right, which is why I proposed that a real human give it as feedback to a new user in a comment to their low-quality question.

Kellenjb

@reemrevnivek yeah, that is a good idea

i hate thinking up tags to put on my questions

Nick T

is electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/13760/… really a bad question?

seems fine, just needs to be made a little more specific

Kellenjb

its a poorly asked question that i told the author twice the reword and never did. I reword it if i could but i dont know enough about what he wants to be able to

Nick T

2:46 PM

just fixed it up a bit

Nick T

2:57 PM

reemrevnivek

3:08 PM

@NickT IMO, it needs to be less specific! The user needs to know how to build a cross compiler, and how to configure an IDE for cross compilation. We don't need a question for every permutation of host platform, target platform, and IDE.

@NickT What is that, besides a dragon with a skullcap?

Nick T

So why not just have a question that's about "how do I use LEDs?"

everything else is too specific

I think a question about a given micro on a given development system is fine

reemrevnivek

Perhaps I went too far in the other direction. I still feel like this particular example is too specific.

Nick T

Tons of other people would probably have the same question

reemrevnivek

3:31 PM

What basis do you have for that statistic?
You could also say that tons of other people would probably want to know how to compile for ARM in Visual Studio on Windows Vista, or that they'd want to compile for PicoBlaze in CodeLite on Debian Linux. Do we need answers for all those questions?
I would say that once you understand the concepts, and perhaps walk through the process for a specific grouping (which might be for AVR in XCode on a Mac), then a competent visitor should be able to use that as a guide for future cross compilations.

Nick T

That assumes everyone coming here will have a high enough level of knowledge to do so

10

Q: Why does a resistor need to be on the anode?

Please be kind, I am an electronics nub. This is in reference to getting an LED to emit photons. From what I read (Getting Started in Electronics - Forrest Mims III and Make: Electronics) electrons flow from the more negative side to the more positive side. In an example experiment (involving ...

led resistor current switch

Kellenjb

There is also a fine line being walked in that we are not in the business of telling people how to install and configure programs.

so i think it is reasonable to say that we should allow more permutations of LED questions while having a stricter standard for questions like the OSx question

Nick T

Why?

reemrevnivek

@Kellenjb Agreed.

@NickT We're a site about electronics design. The PC software configuration problem is only a peripheral to our scope.

Nick T

So development software has nothing to do with electronics design, got it

Kellenjb

3:44 PM

@NickT there is lots of stuff that has something to do with electronics design but is not in the scope of this site

reemrevnivek

@NickT That's not what I said, and I don't think it's what Kellenjb intended either. It's a peripheral - It has something to do with it, but it's not a core problem. We should allow more permutations of core questions, but fewer variations of questions that are only tangentially related.

Nick T

@Kellenjb doesn't that seem like a somewhat absurd statement? Isn't our scope things related to electronic design?

Kellenjb

a specific electronics design problem
the theory and simulation of electromagnetic forces
a communication scheme
the writing of firmware for bare-metal or RTOS applications

Thats what our FAQ says :-)

reemrevnivek

@NickT Our scope is centered on electronics design. It includes things which are related to electronics design, but does not center on them.

Nick T

writing of firmware?

Kellenjb

3:50 PM

@NickT let me take this from a different approach, Would you be perfectly ok with me asking a question about trying to get mplab setup to program my PIC in windows 2000?

Nick T

sure

why, would you put that question on SuperUser or something?

reemrevnivek

Correct.
Questions like "how to configure an ISR on microcontroller X with compiler Z" or "How to set up peripheral Y on microcontroller W" would be the writing of firmware. We'd probably allow many permutations of W, X, Y, and Z.
However, questions about setting up an environment in which to write the answers to those questions is not the same as writing firmware.

Kellenjb

@NickT i think we have a very large difference in opinion

reemrevnivek

@NickT Superuser is a place where it would be more centered in their scope. However, our users probably have more experience in this specific area of software configuration, so we'd allow a few of this sort of question here.

However, this is turning into a Nick T bashing. I don't think you're stupid, you understand where we're coming from, so it's pointless to explain our positions further. If you feel that this is an important question, put it on Meta.

Nick T

So questions about IDEs alone are off-topic?

Kellenjb

3:57 PM

thats not what we said, what we said is as we get near the edge of being off-topic we should allow less permutations and require them to be more broad.

but, i do think that many questions about IDEs will be off-topic. questions like "I tried to install mplab and get an error code 539234, what does this mean, what should i do?" probably dont belong here

Kellenjb

4:20 PM

0

Q: What should we do with questions that are fuzzy as to if they are within our scope?

A discussion came up in chat that started about this question. Some think it is on-topic, some think it is off-topic, some thing it is in the gray area. I think there are good arguments for all of them. So what do you think? Is it on-topic, off-topic, questionable, too broad, too narrow, just r...

discussion closed-questions

@reemrevnivek thanks for editing

reemrevnivek

np

Kellenjb

just got an email about a job application that was posted yesterday and i applied to last night... "We are fortunate to have had many qualified candidates apply to this position. We have reviewed the qualifications of each candidate and after careful consideration, we have determined that other candidates better fit our needs at this time."

i get the feeling it is a "you are not qualified, sorry" email, but worded as if they actually compared me to others

reemrevnivek

I'd read it differently, unless you want to ascribe some sort of negligence to the reviewer.
A direct reading would indicate that you are qualified, but other applicants were better qualified. If, for example, you were applying to [Sandia National Labs](http://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/919209#919209) with a 3.501 GPA, but someone else had a 3.9, they could send you the same piece of mail.

They probably set their standards low, so they'd get enough applications. Then, when they got plenty of applications, they created a new, higher set of standards that you didn't meet.
Bummer, though, that you didn't get the job. At least they didn't drag it out.

Also, not sure what's wrong with the link in the first part of the message.

Kellenjb

4:53 PM

well it said they wanted 2-5 years of experience but would consider eduction in place of some experience, i figured that may have gotten me

i would just find it hard to believe that tons of people would apply for a job the day its posted

reemrevnivek

@Kellenjb Ah, so you didn't quite qualify.

@Kellenjb That is hard to believe. In that case, don't burn any bridges - you might be getting a call back!

BTW, answered your question on Meta.

Kellenjb

I don't worry too much about job applications. i get turned down a lot

plus i have 7 months before i graduate

Nick T

6:11 PM

@reemrevnivek what you mean by your comment on electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/13818/… anyway

or are you reading my phrase "do nothing for" literally

reemrevnivek

It was a literal reading, intended to be funny.

Nick T

ah :P

not sure if you saw my reply on my nom, but gaming.stackexchange.com/tags/portal-2/topusers :P

reemrevnivek

@NickT Nope, I didn't see it. However, there's also gaming.stackexchange.com/users?tab=reputation, and stackexchange.com/users/… ...

Nick T

hmm, haven't seen that graph, purdy

reemrevnivek

I found it from here:

3

A: What happened to the old reputation graph?

Every user has a Network Profile. They've put the graph there. To see your graph, in your user page click on Network Profile. Then click the reputation tab Edit See the official annouce: http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/04/stack-exchange-network-profiles/

The feed just popped up again. I'm glad that it's no longer in the stream, but it's way too late to be useful.

Nick T

6:33 PM

Who configured it...it's terrible

it points to the twitter feed of the site, why not just the site itself?

reemrevnivek

@Nick - Tyblu was involved in it somehow, but I don't think it turned out like he wanted it to. A while back, it placed big, ugly posts with bit.ly links in the feed, which was annoying.
I would love it if there was a feed that put up notifications either here, or (that I could subscribe to) through my Growl app, preferably one which did so instantly (or within 30 seconds or so) of the post being added.

Nick T

the ones on GSE take ~5 minutes

reemrevnivek

The current implementation, I agree, is pretty bad.

Here, it's more like half an hour, right?

Nick T

it's whenever and whatever ones the site decides to make a twitter post about, plus whatever the update lag is

reemrevnivek

You're right, it's even worse. The last one was posted 4 hours ago, and tweeted 35 minutes ago:

electronics.stackexchange.com/posts/13818/revisions

Looks like we configure them here:

chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/info/15/…

GSE's configuration is here:

chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/info/35/the-bridge?tab=feeds

Nick T

6:49 PM

yeah, those are just right off the main site's feeds

reemrevnivek

which, for ED, is electronics.stackexchange.com/feeds

@Tyblu, we need you!

You're the only member here who has access to the feed configuration. Would you mind tweaking this a bit?

Nick T

mod should be able to as well

dunno

reemrevnivek

Yeah, but mods on the parent site aren't necessarily mods in the chat room.

@reemrevnivek ....and I found my answer here:

14

Q: Newt - question, answer and comment and rep change notifications for OS X

Newt is a simple OS X utility that notifies you about new questions, answers, comments and reputation changes. Now, everyone can become a Jon Skeet! Screenshot / Code Snippet Notifications are dispalyed with Growl. Customizable settings with support for new Stack Exchange sites. The ma...

app notifier notification mac-os-x growl

Nick T

7:17 PM

2 more noms, woo

reemrevnivek

7:55 PM

@NickT Less than 10 minutes remaining. Duh - duh DUUUUH!!!!

Dean

woo elections are open

reemrevnivek

I absolutely need to get two rep somehow so that I can have 8888 total rep. Anybody know how I can do that?

Dean

umm i upvote a question then yu downvote 3?

or edit a question :)

yu get 2 rep for that

reemrevnivek

Ah, must go find something to fix. Good test of my moderating abilities, no?

Dean

probs

wow this is tough :/ all are good for the job

Nick T

8:19 PM

@reemrevnivek grades out yet?

Dean

Where does this idea of unicorns come from for the stack exchange?

reemrevnivek

@Nick - Yup, 4.0 this semester!

Nick T

@Dean meta.stackoverflow.com/tags/unicorns

reemrevnivek

@Dean - Not sure, see this question for a lot of good ones:

118

Q: The Many Memes of Meta

The term "Internet Meme" is used to describe a catchphrase or concept that spreads quickly from person to person via the Internet (see: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme_(Internet) for more details) Stack Overflow and now even more predominantly Meta Stack Overflow has seen more than its fair share of ...

support faq memes

Nick T

on banner or bb?

reemrevnivek

8:21 PM

Blackboard

Oh, and Banner, under Student -> Student Records -> Final Grades -> Winter 11

Nick T

meh, did worse than I wanted on final exam, 83%

still A, but w/e

hmm, 2 As in lecture, 1 B in lab, woo

reemrevnivek

@Nick - Nicely done!

W5VO

yay... voted\

Nick T

probably need to learn to keep a lab notebook better anyways

doing research w/ a couple profs this summer

Dean

@W5VO I need to think about my votes :/

reemrevnivek

8:32 PM

@W5VO - Surprised you didn't nominate yourself. Thanks for voting, though.

W5VO

@NickT it's a tough habit to get into

reemrevnivek

@Nick - Research with some proffs this summer is far more important than a lab notebook.

@Dean - You can change your votes, if that makes a difference to you.

Nick T

@reemrevnivek yeah, but they'll probably care more about it

Dean

@reemrevnivek yeah i know

W5VO

@reemrevnivek Why so surprised? I'm not really a high-quantity contributor...

Nick T

8:34 PM

at least with their stuff there will probably be a legitimate reason, rather than just being some stupid classroom activity that's been done a million times before

reemrevnivek

@W5VO - You're an active community member. That, IMO, is more important than being a high-quantity contributor.

W5VO

Even by that metric, there's certainly more people who are more active than I

Nick T

http://stackexchange.com/leagues/58/alltime/electronics just vote like that, descending order

clearly the best at the top

reemrevnivek

@W5VO You still can't reduce it to a metric. The question is which people are the best guides of the community.

W5VO

@reemrevnivek My view on keeping a lab book is that it is for MY benefit... it keeps my numbers and thoughts so I know what I was thinking later when writing a report or figuring out troubleshooting

Nick T

8:38 PM

I don't get jluciani, it seems like she used to be active a bunch, and still visits the site almost daily, but hasn't posted in months

W5VO

@NickT *shudders

All I remember is that she kept putting her tag-line on answers... although I don't remember the answers being bad

reemrevnivek

@W5VO My view on keeping a lab notebook is that it is for the benefit of those who come behind me and have to maintain the system I was working on. Since no one will ever need to know the motivation for my decisions on a lab assignment, it's pointless except as practice. It's much more profitable (and therefore much easier to motivate myself to do) when it's actually a production system that generates revenue for my company and will be maintained by someone after I'm gone.

Nick T

@reemrevnivek W5VO's take is probably more applicable to what I'll be doing (biochem research)

Though when I was at Steelcase, we had a bunch of documents kept on Sharepoint that our team would review weekly, so you'd more or less use those as a notebook

reemrevnivek

Wonder if that's a scripted access.
It seems like everyone has been busy lately. Tyblu said he was too busy to be a moderator (see the "Time no longer exists" comment to the right), I took a month off, jluciani has been absent...

Dean

yeah the annoying thing is that if i get a mod position it will be slap bang in the middle of my exams :@

reemrevnivek

8:46 PM

@Dean - I'm sure the other mods can pick up the slack while you're busy...

Dean

@reemrevnivek yeah i will try to check every couple of days to relax

Nick T

I heard @Kortuk does all the modding, just let him do it all

reemrevnivek

Sad thing is it's true. I tried to help out before launch, but I lost access to the tools page once we left beta.
We definitely need more 10k users.

Anybody know if the results are available as the election progresses - sort of like an exit poll? Curiosity is definitely one of my flaws...

Nick T

doubt it

W5VO

@reemrevnivek Yeah, there's only 2x 10k users

Nick T

8:50 PM

@reemrevnivek Using the same rep requirements across all sites is kind of asinine when they have wildly different community sizes

reemrevnivek

@W5VO ...and Leon is unlikely to do a lot of moderator work, and Joby is too busy and didn't run.

Dean

@reemrevnivek Nope have to wait until the end in 8 days :(

W5VO

It would be hilariously awful if leon modded

reemrevnivek

@NickT It's accentuated by the fact that we were seeded by Chiphacker - I had about 4k IIRC when we started the commit phase! Most sites have nothing.

@W5VO But it would be quick, decisive, and to the point!

Nick T

:P too bad he didn't nom nom nominiate

reemrevnivek

8:52 PM

Well, I have to head home. Caribou steaks for dinner tonight! Good luck in the election to everybody.

Oh, and make sure that Kortuk gets elected whatever happens.

There's no way we're letting him off the hook!

W5VO

Kortuk 2011 - Mod for Life!

3

Kellenjb

i also thought they should have a metric for the number of active users on a given site and then have different percentages of people that they want for each tier, so like if they want 10% to have access to tools then they take the top10% of active users and give them the tools

W5VO

@Kellenjb Or at least make that be a minimum. Top X% users, or all users over 20k, which ever is bigger.

Kellenjb

that works as well

Nick T

9:10 PM

Vote Kortuk - for Electronics Design 2011 Scapegoat

Dean

9:24 PM

I think there is a problem its saying on meta i have a change in reputation of 323 but i can only see 7 :/

Nick T

9:36 PM

?

Dean

9:48 PM

If i got to my profile page on meta.electronics

Nick T

10:08 PM

1

A: Amusing 404 Page Not Found Image?

Hic Sunt Dracones I can't find any clear pictures, but this is a crop from one that Wikipedia uses on Here be dragons Or something like a retro-lolcat? (source image)

Transcript for

Electrical Engineering