alt Hacker NewsSorry, I'm too busy trying to check an algorithm to convert floating-point numbers to strings for correctness to deal with people playing the "I'm a rocket scientist, therefore everything is easy to me" card. And yet somehow Elon isn't that (see his most recent SpaceX, where he quite literally uses that to justify his competence to build orbital data centers).
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I implemented float-to-string for my compiler's printf back sometime before 1985. It's a medium difficult problem.
Once you understand engineering, transferring that skill to another engineering discipline is not that hard.
For example, the equations for Newtonian mechanics, electronics, beam design, rotating inertia, etc., are interchangeable.
> his competence to build orbital data centers
Since nobody has yet built an orbital data center, nobody is competent at it yet.
Classic HN software eng. "I know everything about everything because I can cast a float to a string"