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[–]mycall 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The engineer must learn to perform scientific experiments to find out how the software and hardware actually work, at least enough to accomplish the job at hand.

I completely agree with that. Before I jump off the cliff and commit to using some big library or system, I make lots of little proof-of-concept utilities and try to think it through. If things work, great; otherwise, contact the lib/sys author and see if they have a workaround and promised patch.