Gregory's Server@blacklight one thing that analogy is missing though is that maybe the medieval engineer looking at the Parthenon has been tasked with building a shop for the local shoemaker. He doesn't have the resources or time available to a wealthy Greek city state.
We should admire the consummate skill with which the engineers of NASA past did their work. But they weren't building software for the masses. It's important to keep that in mind as well.
@SamUpstate you've hit a good point here that I've often tried to bring up.
The moonshots of the 1960s and 1970s (NASA has plenty of such examples, but AT&T Bell laboratories are another source of engineering marvels) were possible because in that age pumping tons of public money into moonshots without thinking of immediate profitability wasn't seen as a communist act.
If you let engineers focus on building the best possible thing, with no pressure from stakeholders, demos, MVPs, short deadlines, monetization, VC funds drying out etc., they will build the best possible thing.
But you need public money in order to achieve that - and a lot of it.
@SamUpstate you've hit a good point here that I've often tried to bring up.
The moonshots of the 1960s and 1970s (NASA has plenty of such examples, but AT&T Bell laboratories are another source of engineering marvels) were possible because in that age pumping tons of public money into moonshots without thinking of immediate profitability wasn't seen as a communist act.