Scientific method
2024-11-09


Scientific method is OP and can be applied to many more things than just pure science. Methods of engineering design are very similar, only applied to a different problem. It's really a flexible and useful framework to inteligently approach any problem and work out a satisfying conclusion. For example TDD can be seen as the embodiment of scientific method applied to software engineering, where instead of modifying the hypothesis to match your observations about the world, you modify the world to make observations match your hypothesis. I find it useful to remind myself steps of the scientific method from time to time.

<pre>
| step | scientific method | engineering design |
|------|-------------------|--------------------|
| 1    | question          | problem definition |
| 2    | observation       | research           |
| 3    | hypothesis        | planning & design  |
| 4    | experiment        | prototype          |
| 5    | analysis          | evaluation         |
| 6    | conclusion        | improvement        |
| 7    | report & repeat   | report & repeat    |
</pre>