Engineering Theatre

There's a term I like: 'innovation theatre'. It's used to describe when a business does things that look like innovation but really aren't. Hackathons with no real meaning, giving someone a title like Head of Innovation. It's usually big corporate companies trying to look cutting edge and impress people who don't know the difference.There's a pattern I've noticed recently that's similar: ‘engineering theatre’. I’ve noticed this pattern is in projects built mostly by AI, driven by someone who’s offloading the engineering.Some examples of the theatrics I see are:tests that don’t test anything meaningful but exist because 'good engineers test'.comments that don’t tell you anything but exist because 'code should be documented'.functions that do little to aid maintainability, one line functions that look like structure but add nothing.500 line readme files littered with prose and emojis.All these things look like engineering and are probably found in plenty of teaching material for…