Henk van den Broek wrote:
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Sorry for the part so called experts, I know Aka and Steve are very good at the 8052 subject and i'm sure they know it wasn't ment to be a personnal attack;

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Henk, don't worry about it. I saw nothing wrong with your comments. I've participated in debating on many heated political discussion groups and my definition of a personal attach probably takes a lot more to trigger than most people. That doesn't mean I won't take someone's attempt as a sporting opportunity to volley back. :) But its always in grinning fun.


There is an odd dilemma that Steve's previous comment explains. Engineers and scientists have a natural inclination to share their breakthroughs and solutions with everyone else to share the joy of discovery. This is complicated when that breakthrough is tied to the commercial success of your own company. You find in this situation that you want to talk about it, but doing so would severely hurt your own company and prospects.

This dilemma is diminished if you work for some big company because the trade secret or breakthrough doesn't affect your own salary. People will often talk around the subject and let too much information out in these situations.

While it would have been better to say nothing at all [There's an opening for a Bannister post] I still like to share the joy of discovery and the problem solving process with novices. I tend to limit my discussions to what goes on in the mind of a product or algorithm designer rather than talking specifically about the solution.

As you point out, you'd rather have the useful solution as that would be more efficient. But, one of the most important parts of university or any pursuit of knowledge is beyond the knowledge itself; its how does the acquisition or training change your mind and its ability to see and solve... I'm of the opinion that an undergraduate degree in engineering is about changing your minds to become engineers more so than it is to acquire useful knowledge; your first job does more of the latter.

I only address the latter. Though many would think otherwise if they paid undue attention to my postings, I haven't really said anything identifying my company's market. There have been many misleading hints that served well enough as examples. I have never discussed topics that were close to what my product does or where its breakthroughs exist.

And let me be the first to state that their is NOTHING special, noteworthy, or attractive about my market. It is no holy grail to profits that readers should puzzle out and follow. My excitement about it is over the solutions in my design and as the majority owner of the company, the potential to make myself very successful after a long career of making OTHER people rich.

aka j