The problematic thing about code is that it spans the entire spectrum between "five-minute fun project that will never affect anyone but me" and "world-shifting

The problematic thing about code is that it spans the entire spectrum between "five-minute fun project that will never affect anyone but me" and "world-shifting force". I don't think anything else humans do can claim such a wide range of scale. And so the trouble is that - in terms of best-practices, ethical considerations, regulation - ideas and constraints that are appropriate at one end of the spectrum are completely inappropriate at the other end. And at the same time, it's hard to draw a particular line in the sand to separate the two. It really is a continuum. This is why, even though some parts of our world would greatly benefit from certifying programmers the way we certify engineers, it's a really hard thing to do. Nobody builds suspension bridges at home in a weekend. People don't really even start small businesses building suspension bridges. It's really hard to firmly distinguish the code that can accidentally ruin hundreds of lives from the code that's completely harmless and, indeed, "fun". Sometimes the latter even turns into the former over time. Thinking about this more: I wonder if we could regulate code based on number of users. That seems like a good proxy for its impact on the world. Not sure how easy it would be to measure reliably (in a way that couldn't be fudged).