1.7 KiB
RFC-0006: Inheritance
Status: Proposed Phase: The Bedrock Phase
Abstract
This RFC proposes that inheritance — the active reception and transmission of engineering knowledge across generations — be formalized as a core concept of the Open Engineer standard.
Motivation
Engineering knowledge does not spring from nothing. Every engineer builds on the work of those who came before. Without a formal concept of inheritance, the standard lacks a mechanism for describing how knowledge flows through time.
Observation
The most enduring engineering traditions — from ancient Roman bridge building to modern aerospace engineering — share a common characteristic: they explicitly value the transmission of knowledge from one generation to the next. When that transmission breaks down, knowledge is lost and must be re-derived, often at great cost.
Engineering Principle
Engineers inherit responsibilities as well as resources. Engineering artifacts should be created with stewardship and long-term inheritance in mind.
Reasoning
Inheritance is the temporal dimension of engineering context. Context preservation (RFC-0003) is meaningless if there is no mechanism for passing preserved context forward. Inheritance provides that mechanism. Combined with stewardship (RFC-0005), it creates a complete model for the intergenerational flow of engineering knowledge.
Relationship to Existing Concepts
Inheritance is defined in OE-0010. It is the downstream partner of Stewardship (OE-0009, RFC-0005) and the operational manifestation of the Thread (OE-0001). It connects to the historical observation that ancient engineering was unified before disciplines separated — a unification that inheritance makes possible.