One thing that I think is really annoying when someone is in a technical discussion, and whines:

"But it doesn't scale"

(Granted, there's a time and a place, like in a software architecture meeting while actually working on software)

But whenever I hear this kind of thing from some curmudgeons standing around the water cooler, I think:

"Why don't you go to your computer right now and write something that does, then." (This is like the "drop and give me 20" response.)

"What do you know about scale?"

Or simply,

"Yea, well. Buy more processors, dweeb."

etc.

Anyone else have something they find annoying about software engineers?

(Disclosure: I am in fact a software engineer.)

That reminds me of this:
http://bioen.okstate.edu/Fun/Engineer2.htm

One of the things that annoys me about users/management is that when you try to tell them up front what the limitations are they whine about what you said rather than planning ahead. Why do engineers ALWAYS try to tell you up front? Because when you have an issue later due to ignoring what they tried to tell you you will blame THEM.

I once worked at a job where management actually had the gall to tell us "You didn't try hard enough to convince us." after predictions we made about poor backup strategy came true. Management simply said before implementation "We can't spend THAT kind of money on backups and we'll never need to restore anything older than 6 months anyway". Of course the day came that they wanted to restore something backed up 8 months previously and we provided their written response to our retention proposal this is the bullshit answer they came back with.

The reason they tell you it won't scale is because they KNOW that somewhere down the road you're going to run into performance issues that can only be solved by buying a new solution because you cheaped out on the original one and you WILL blame them.

As noted, and requested, moved to big General

That should be a lead-in to an explanation of exactly what the business needs are, and the exact reasons why the solution being discussed will not scale enough to meet those needs.

EDIT: heh. I googled "but it doesn't scale" and got this parody of what people who fall for technology hype are generally like:

http://www.mongodb-is-web-scale.com/

I assume you wouldn't say such a thing to people outside the fields of computer hardware and software.

That is funny as hell. Of course you should have put in a warning for those with sensitive ears.

The Atlanta Unix Users Group often has people extolling the virtues of NoSQL and often say things like "Relational DBs are a thing of the past". Despite that everyone and their brother still seems to use Oracle, MySQL and, more and more, PostgreSQL which is making a resurgence.

Engineers are notorious for their general lack of human-communication skills.

One problem, of course, is that "nobody else knows what the hell they are talking about." For instance, in this instance.

"It doesn't scale." What does that mean? If it doesn't, then what does? ... A fish? And, why is that actually significant to the problem? ("I mean, I do not know the answer to that!!")

I think that's what Douglas Adams was poking very-effective fun at when he said that the Universe's greatest computer churned-away to solve the problem of Life, The Universe, and Everything, and said that the answer was (and it was...!): "forty-two."

Ehh. Douglas Adams was never particularly funny when exposing his nihilist core, only when he was in being ridiculous. I say, don't talk to me about the stupid forty-two computer; just remember this-- "Oh, freddled gruntbuggly, / Thy micturations are to me! As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee."

I think that many software engineers forget that new technology usually solves scaling issues.

I'd suggest ngineers always know that new technology solves issues. However, they also always know that getting management to spend money on new technology can be more challenging than any technical issue. If management is already buying a solution it is better to nudge them to spend more to make it scalable on the front end than to try to get them to replace or augment it down the road. Sometimes even if "down the road" growth is part of the original plan it still becomes hard to convince management to spend money. People that post things like "Well I refuse to work in environments that do things like that." tend to ignore the real world.

Here's one I've noticed. "Basically" is used in every second word. Some other people are prone to but software engineers or computer admins tend to be prone to it

Haha, this is basically exactly what I was talking about.

Basically, I disagree.

it's the tower of Babylon
in order to even think about the problems they deal with demands that they think in a language only engineers of a given field know where one word would need entire books to explain

Where would they be without technical writers? And that helps only in the field of documentation.