1.5 KiB
Engineering Laws
Status: Draft Phase: The Bedrock Phase
Overview
These are the laws of the Open Engineer standard — not laws of engineering itself, but laws governing how the standard operates.
Law 1: Universal Observation
Open Engineer recognizes observations wherever they arise. It translates enduring observations into engineering principles without adopting the surrounding ideology.
This keeps the project open. It keeps it respectful. No tradition is diminished. No tradition is elevated above another. They are acknowledged as independent observers of reality.
Law 2: Bedrock Immutability
Reality remains fixed. Understanding grows around it.
The bedrock of reality does not change. What changes is human understanding of that reality. The standard must always distinguish between the two and must never treat understanding as if it were reality.
Law 3: Dependency Integrity
Nothing later in the specification may redefine an earlier layer. Only extend it.
This preserves the integrity of the dependency tree. A higher-level document may build on a lower-level document, but it may not alter the lower-level document's definitions or principles.
Law 4: The Thread Must Not Break
Knowledge is carried through continuity. Each generation holds the thread temporarily before passing it onward.
The standard's primary obligation is to maintain this continuity. Any action that would break the thread — by losing context, by creating ambiguity, by failing to preserve reasoning — is a failure of the standard.