Comment by rcxdude

If you're doing something that is a) very well understood and b) affects the safety of the public, then this is where engineering tends to be heavily regulated. It's not the definition of 'real' engineering though. And if you're trying to do something that is difficult in that it needs to be heavily optimised around thin margins, then it's very easy to spend way more time and money if you try to make it right the first time around, and you'll probably still fail compared to just building it and learning from the process, even if building it is a slow, expensive, and dangerous process.