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Compared to many other countries, UK has a computer science culture that's very open about how technology is used in every day lives, and it invites public part

by caseyy 2y ago

Compared to many other countries, UK has a computer science culture that's very open about how technology is used in every day lives, and it invites public participation in new tech. This shows a lot in the government as well as its services like BBC and NHS, and the academia. It's a very broad topic to cover so I'll be terse with evidence/examples only. UK government provides a lot of open data and APIs for the country [0], [1]. They are free and pretty much not throttled. They have a license [2] for a lot of this data which is formal but nearly as free as John Carmack's legendary hacker-friendly "have fun" license [3]. There is also a lot of historical Ordnance Survey data and historical legislation data from the National Archives. And of course, you can see the openness in how they have built gov.uk, as blog articles appear on HN about it quite often. There is also a lot of government infrastructure provided to local governments, such as gov.uk Notify [4] or a freely available NHS website CMS (which is why many NHS websites work the same). There is a guide [5] mostly intended for government services but free for others to use on building accessible, secure and quite good-looking websites. Most other governments I lived under are either technically behind UK or they have very advanced tech capabilities in certain branches of the government only (such as the armed forces) but keep it out of the public eye. Ultimately, I think it is the culture of welcoming everyone's participation in technology that makes UK gov so forthcoming and open with their tech and data. Doing this is seen as kind and civilised, which is how governments want to be seen. Of course, there are still areas of improvement in how UK gov provides data, as there always are in everything. Finally, I should mention you can find many BBC technology outreach programmes from the early days of home computing. They are all over YouTube if you search for "BCC home computing". There was and continues to be a lot of techno-optimism in the country. It is one of the admittedly not many things that persist from the pre-austerity times. [0] https://www.data.gov.uk https://www.data.gov.uk [1] https://www.api.gov.uk/index/#index https://www.api.gov.uk/index/#index [2] https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/ https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-lice... [3] https://github.com/id-Software/DOOM/blob/master/README.TXT https://github.com/id-Software/DOOM/blob/master/README.TXT (before GPL became popular, id software code was distributed with this readme that said "Have fun") [4] https://www.notifications.service.gov.uk https://www.notifications.service.gov.uk [5] https://frontend.design-system.service.gov.uk https://frontend.design-system.service.gov.uk

alephnerd 2y ago
> This shows a lot in the government as well as its services like BBC and NHS, and the academia Salaries play a significant role. Unlike a lot of other countries, private sector salaries for SWEs suck in much of the UK, and gov.uk (in reality part of the Civil Service), GCHQ+MoD, and BBC can pay fairly competitively and give a fairly decent pension compared to private sector gigs. That said, I'd disagree with NHS IT - it's almost entirely outsourced to regional MSPs who suck (and I say this as a former vendor who's helped sell products those guys use in NHS environments)
ascorbic 2y ago
This isn't really an example of UK culture. 15 years ago, UK gov sites were as bad as everywhere else. Some of the small number of good things that I can credit the Cameron government were a few of these changes, including the establishment of the Government Digital Service and changing "IT" education from learning how to use Word, to actually teaching all kids coding, starting in primary school.
- caseyy 2y ago
  It is culture. The government doesn’t just provide these APIs, people use them. End even if you compare Harvard’s CS50 vs CS courses in the UK, you will see that it’s a lot more oriented around computing in every day life. The BBC home computing shows and their success itself is a bit of a unique phenomenon in the UK. Many other countries had these shows but they never went mainstream, most only attracted viewership of enthusiasts. There is a strong cultural element.

by caseyy 2y ago

alephnerd 2y ago

> This shows a lot in the government as well as its services like BBC and NHS, and the academia Salaries play a significant role. Unlike a lot of other countries, private sector salaries for SWEs suck in much of the UK, and gov.uk (in reality part of the Civil Service), GCHQ+MoD, and BBC can pay fairly competitively and give a fairly decent pension compared to private sector gigs. That said, I'd disagree with NHS IT - it's almost entirely outsourced to regional MSPs who suck (and I say this as a former vendor who's helped sell products those guys use in NHS environments)

ascorbic 2y ago

This isn't really an example of UK culture. 15 years ago, UK gov sites were as bad as everywhere else. Some of the small number of good things that I can credit the Cameron government were a few of these changes, including the establishment of the Government Digital Service and changing "IT" education from learning how to use Word, to actually teaching all kids coding, starting in primary school.

caseyy 2y ago
It is culture. The government doesn’t just provide these APIs, people use them. End even if you compare Harvard’s CS50 vs CS courses in the UK, you will see that it’s a lot more oriented around computing in every day life. The BBC home computing shows and their success itself is a bit of a unique phenomenon in the UK. Many other countries had these shows but they never went mainstream, most only attracted viewership of enthusiasts. There is a strong cultural element.