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Article appears to be a mis-statment of the actual quote (from http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120515120106322 http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?sto

Article appears to be a mis-statment of the actual quote (from http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120515120106322 http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120515120106322) > Judge: We heard the testimony of Mr. Bloch. I couldn't > have told you the first thing about Java before this > problem. I have done, and still do, a significant amount > of programming in other languages. I've written blocks of > code like rangeCheck a hundred times before. I could do > it, you could do it. The idea that someone would copy that > when they could do it themselves just as fast, it was an > accident. There's no way you could say that was speeding > them along to the marketplace. You're one of the best > lawyers in America, how could you even make that kind of > argument? It sounds like the judge is saying that he has written code before, just not in Java. Presumably this was some time ago, before he decided to become a judge.

kenko 14y ago
He says he still does a significant amount of coding, actually! This is some Posner-like polymathism out of a judge.
- jahmed 14y ago
  Disappointing that Judge Posner will probably never be a Supreme Court Justice.
gambler 14y ago
Seems like this is a good answer to those asking "how could learning to code help X to do their political job". That's how. By giving them some basic sense of proportions when it comes to software.
- trentmb 14y ago
  The same could apply to any field.
  - glesica 14y ago
    Which is exactly why a liberally (small 'L') educated population is so critically important to the functioning of a representative government.
    - Jach 14y ago
      This doesn't quite follow... The objection I thought of is that if you have a populace where most members believe they know a subject well enough, perhaps because they "went over the fundamentals for a couple weeks in a college course", actual experts are less able to influence policy in an actually effective way since "everyone is an expert" and there will be disagreements; people won't see their ignorance as mountainous but merely as "a weekend of study would catch me up". There are plenty of good arguments for a broadly-but-shallowly educated populace, but I don't think this is really one of them.
      - mbreese 14y ago
        The idea behind a liberal education isn't to get students to believe that they can understand a topic because they "went over the fundamentals for a few weeks in college". It's to get them to be able to rationally discuss the topic with someone who is an expert. My wife tells a story about a business class she took in undergrad. It was about markets and investing for non-business majors. The professor started out very clearly by explaining that the class was not going to make them financial geniuses - that it would not make them all millionaires. But, that it would help them make better decision so they could understand what the recommendations of their financial planners. In undergrad, I took a course on the "international political economy" (on of my favorites too - Thanks Dr. Katz). Now, I don't think that means I'd be equipped to negotiate a treaty, but it does help me follow international events with a bit more context. Do you think we should get rid of Wikipedia, so people don't spend a few hours reading about topics, lest they start to think they are experts?
      - jbert 14y ago
        I guess it depends whether the oft-cited Dunning Kruger is linear. i.e. does a little knowledge of a subject allow you to understand how incomplete your knowledge is? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
- ehutch79 14y ago
  That's how. By giving them some basic sense of proportions. ftfy. seriously though, most of these people that don't fathom the work that goes into creating software don't fathom the work that goes into designing a car, or building a house, or just what it takes to get a product made in china to their door.
6ren 14y ago
So he was playing dumb earlier for the benefit of the jury - to make the advocates spell out their case clearly. This is what he was responding to: > This copying allowed them to use fewer resources and accelerate that. Suppose they > accelerated it two days. They're making $3 million a day now [...] If you just get > one or two days' acceleration, that's $6 million This is a good point; it's common to underestimate how long it takes to code something. And time to market is often strategically crucial - that is, productivity isn't just efficient, but can be the difference between success and failure. rangeCheck is trivial; but writing, testing, debugging, naming and documenting take time. A trivial typo bug in rangeCheck can cost a disproportionate amount of time - and it's amplified here, when rangeCheck was used to test other code. (Who shall unit test the unit tests?) To answer Groklaw's final question as to why Alsup couldn't decide on API copyrightability yet, he clearly said he needed to do a lot of reading. He not only has to decide according to law, he is in effect creating law, since this specific issue hasn't been decided earlier. His ruling has wider significance than just this particular case. Future potential litigants will read his ruling, and will avoid court if it's clear who would win. Although he is only one judge and so his precedent won't be binding on a full bench/higher court, those judges would also carefully read his judgment. He'd better get it right, not only in the result, but in the reasoning, and integrating it with related cases. It's great that Groklaw is making these transcripts - because the court is a public institution, I think the official transcripts should be available (and why not video too? The emphasis in oral argument sometimes isn't captured in a transcript.)
- zerohp 14y ago
  Are you kidding me about rangeCheck? How much writing, testing, debugging and naming do you think this takes? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3940683 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3940683
  - adgar 14y ago
    Your parent poster didn't imply agreement with the line of reasoning he explained. He was just illustrating why the question is important to begin with.
- 14y ago
Drbble 14y ago
It is hard to believe that he has been a lawyer/judge for decades, yet is also an active programmer, and yet and doesn't know a thing about a language that is easily top 5 most commonly known and heavily litigated (Microsoft). Judges tend to have ego battles with lawyers and like to show off in their decisions, trying to bluff and snow each other. That seems to be what this is.
- glimcat 14y ago
  I couldn't tell you the first thing about Perl, or any number of other common tools and languages - and I've been programming for about 25 years. I've just used different tools so far.
  - tomdtpink 14y ago
    Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets. They will delete my comments :) CENSSORHIP IN ACTION. Bubble is here escape while you can.
tomdtpink 14y ago
Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets. They will delete my comments :) CENSSORHIP IN ACTION. Bubble is here escape while you can.
_delirium 14y ago
I'm curious now what context his programming comes in. His bio doesn't really show any pre-law career: law degree 1971, law clerk 1971-72, private attorney 1972-78, assistant in the Solicitor General's office 1978-80, private attorney 1980-99, judge 1999-present. So it must've come in the context of his law career somewhere (some kind of DIY automation?), unless it's a hobby.

kenko 14y ago

He says he still does a significant amount of coding, actually! This is some Posner-like polymathism out of a judge.

jahmed 14y ago
Disappointing that Judge Posner will probably never be a Supreme Court Justice.

gambler 14y ago

Seems like this is a good answer to those asking "how could learning to code help X to do their political job". That's how. By giving them some basic sense of proportions when it comes to software.

trentmb 14y ago
The same could apply to any field.
- glesica 14y ago
  Which is exactly why a liberally (small 'L') educated population is so critically important to the functioning of a representative government.
  - Jach 14y ago
    This doesn't quite follow... The objection I thought of is that if you have a populace where most members believe they know a subject well enough, perhaps because they "went over the fundamentals for a couple weeks in a college course", actual experts are less able to influence policy in an actually effective way since "everyone is an expert" and there will be disagreements; people won't see their ignorance as mountainous but merely as "a weekend of study would catch me up". There are plenty of good arguments for a broadly-but-shallowly educated populace, but I don't think this is really one of them.
    - mbreese 14y ago
      The idea behind a liberal education isn't to get students to believe that they can understand a topic because they "went over the fundamentals for a few weeks in college". It's to get them to be able to rationally discuss the topic with someone who is an expert. My wife tells a story about a business class she took in undergrad. It was about markets and investing for non-business majors. The professor started out very clearly by explaining that the class was not going to make them financial geniuses - that it would not make them all millionaires. But, that it would help them make better decision so they could understand what the recommendations of their financial planners. In undergrad, I took a course on the "international political economy" (on of my favorites too - Thanks Dr. Katz). Now, I don't think that means I'd be equipped to negotiate a treaty, but it does help me follow international events with a bit more context. Do you think we should get rid of Wikipedia, so people don't spend a few hours reading about topics, lest they start to think they are experts?
    - jbert 14y ago
      I guess it depends whether the oft-cited Dunning Kruger is linear. i.e. does a little knowledge of a subject allow you to understand how incomplete your knowledge is? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
ehutch79 14y ago
That's how. By giving them some basic sense of proportions. ftfy. seriously though, most of these people that don't fathom the work that goes into creating software don't fathom the work that goes into designing a car, or building a house, or just what it takes to get a product made in china to their door.

6ren 14y ago

So he was playing dumb earlier for the benefit of the jury - to make the advocates spell out their case clearly. This is what he was responding to: > This copying allowed them to use fewer resources and accelerate that. Suppose they > accelerated it two days. They're making $3 million a day now [...] If you just get > one or two days' acceleration, that's $6 million This is a good point; it's common to underestimate how long it takes to code something. And time to market is often strategically crucial - that is, productivity isn't just efficient, but can be the difference between success and failure. rangeCheck is trivial; but writing, testing, debugging, naming and documenting take time. A trivial typo bug in rangeCheck can cost a disproportionate amount of time - and it's amplified here, when rangeCheck was used to test other code. (Who shall unit test the unit tests?) To answer Groklaw's final question as to why Alsup couldn't decide on API copyrightability yet, he clearly said he needed to do a lot of reading. He not only has to decide according to law, he is in effect creating law, since this specific issue hasn't been decided earlier. His ruling has wider significance than just this particular case. Future potential litigants will read his ruling, and will avoid court if it's clear who would win. Although he is only one judge and so his precedent won't be binding on a full bench/higher court, those judges would also carefully read his judgment. He'd better get it right, not only in the result, but in the reasoning, and integrating it with related cases. It's great that Groklaw is making these transcripts - because the court is a public institution, I think the official transcripts should be available (and why not video too? The emphasis in oral argument sometimes isn't captured in a transcript.)

zerohp 14y ago
Are you kidding me about rangeCheck? How much writing, testing, debugging and naming do you think this takes? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3940683 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3940683
- adgar 14y ago
  Your parent poster didn't imply agreement with the line of reasoning he explained. He was just illustrating why the question is important to begin with.
14y ago

Drbble 14y ago

It is hard to believe that he has been a lawyer/judge for decades, yet is also an active programmer, and yet and doesn't know a thing about a language that is easily top 5 most commonly known and heavily litigated (Microsoft). Judges tend to have ego battles with lawyers and like to show off in their decisions, trying to bluff and snow each other. That seems to be what this is.

glimcat 14y ago
I couldn't tell you the first thing about Perl, or any number of other common tools and languages - and I've been programming for about 25 years. I've just used different tools so far.
- tomdtpink 14y ago
  Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets. They will delete my comments :) CENSSORHIP IN ACTION. Bubble is here escape while you can.

tomdtpink 14y ago

Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets.Trolls kill HN. They are fooling every one. Bring out the sockpuppets. They will delete my comments :) CENSSORHIP IN ACTION. Bubble is here escape while you can.

_delirium 14y ago

I'm curious now what context his programming comes in. His bio doesn't really show any pre-law career: law degree 1971, law clerk 1971-72, private attorney 1972-78, assistant in the Solicitor General's office 1978-80, private attorney 1980-99, judge 1999-present. So it must've come in the context of his law career somewhere (some kind of DIY automation?), unless it's a hobby.