Stepback and Crossover

Crossover is a basketball maneuver that when done properly, allows the attacker to move pass the defender, but at risk that if the attacker wants to take a shot, the defender may be still close enough to block it. If the attacker needs to take a shot, there's another manouver, called stepback, in which the attacker (very very) quickly gets close to the defender and then steps back.


See here how Kemba Walker does a crossover followed by a stepback with a Baryshnikovian perfection.

Research, Engineering and Novelty

It is possible to distill the research process into these steps:

• Immerse yourself in a domain
• Grok it till you can spot holes in it
• Find an idea that covers one of these holes 
• Show the novelty of that idea by the fact that it fills a hole or covers some aspect of the domain that wasn't covered before.
• Prove the idea either formally using theorems and lemmas or present data that supports the it with some level of certainty

If you need to build a system to prove the idea, it is a disposable, one shot system, that solves the given problem and its set of users is the researcher / research team.

The grand finale of the research process is when it is dumped out as a research paper that is accepted to a journal or presented in a conference.

Engineering is somewhat different.

The engineering process is initiated when there's a need to solve a problem - which is done by constructing and materializing a solution (which does not have to be a novel one).
This usually involves a development process. The solution's novelty can be further protected as a patent.

In this process, a bulletproof and robust solution is the holy grail.
A successful system is one that:

• Solves the given problem
• Provides maximal output with minimal resources 
• Can be used by many users (not just by the solution/system developers) 

The grand finale of an engineering process is a satisfied user (this can be someone crossing a bridge, a pilot flying an aircraft or a gamer playing in a virtual world).

I was, am and will be involved in both of these processes, so all I can say is that the understanding in which process you are is far more important then the kind of process you participate in.