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And this is why we need SCM-level tracking for our laws.
by ghouse 10y ago
And this is why we need SCM-level tracking for our laws.
- koolba 10y ago> And this is why we need SCM-level tracking for our laws. That'd be great. Each commit would be pushed by the attesting legislator and they could even put the corporate lobbyist that actually wrote the change in the author field!
- a3n 10y agoAnd suddenly everyone would understand how to use git blame.
- TeMPOraL 10y agoAnd at some point people would start referring to proposed laws by their commit hashes. "The Senate hearing over controversial bill 4ad57b ..."
- koolba 10y ago> "The Senate hearing over controversial bill 4ad57b ..." Ha! That'd be a nice side effect this approach. Taking the concept one step further, there should be a CI environment to test out new laws.
- imglorp 10y agoOne problem there is riders. Bills are a big mishmash of everybody's favorite pork and loophole fests instead of being a nice isolated single story commit. This leads to no end of treachery later. For one thing, it means you can smear someone for voting either _for_ or _against_ the same bill. For another, places without line-item-veto are screwed.
- 1024core 10y agoWhy SCM-level? Wikipedia does it; why can't the Congress?
- danudey 10y agoBecause it's against their interests to make the creation of laws simple and transparent, because it would remove a lot of their ability to sneak in things like this to push a hidden agenda. When you can push your own (or your sponsors') interests in relative secrecy, transparency is anathema.
- 1024core 10y agoOh, I know why they do it. My point was that the solution isn't complicated; it's been out there, working, for more than a decade.
- coldcode 10y agoKnowing the level of technology parts of the government are stuck with, they'd start using Visual SourceSafe.
- sitkack 10y agoMakes sense, it has corruption built in.
- zo1 10y agoWell, if they use Word, then I guess we're fresh out of luck because that problem is yet to be solved. And no, one does not simply suggest to a business person (or politician) that they should learn "markdown" or LaTeX...because reasons.