4 ms·

> And many, many thick books written by a lot of very smart people have been dedicated solely to trying to define this word, which is hotly debated. No wonder

• libertymcateer 11y ago
  > but you are right the future will be the status quo of contracts written in ambiguous english language where we pay someone 300/hr to argue over what the definition of the word "is" is. $300 is the low end of the spectrum, dotcomrade. And trust me, I assure you that there are very many exceedingly important circumstances where reasonable minds could disagree vehemently over the definition of "is" in a given context. [Here is a recent example of an and/or typo potentially costing $3B.](http://nypost.com/2015/12/14/caesars-may-sink-because-of-alleged-3b-typo/ http://nypost.com/2015/12/14/caesars-may-sink-because-of-all...) I don't recall how this all came out in the wash, but put it this way: precision matters. Or, to put it another way: why do people who spend all day writing software code behave as if contracts can be written with any less precision? Dismissing arguments over the definition of "is" is the same as steamrolling over variable types in a strictly typed language. It is just indicative you don't have much respect for working in that language.