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Mostly lawyers. Which shouldn't be necessary. But they are because there is no way for normal people to fully understand the law. How can we even be expected no

Mostly lawyers. Which shouldn't be necessary. But they are because there is no way for normal people to fully understand the law. How can we even be expected not to break it regularly? I see lawyers as some sort of bad kind of software developers but for humans. They write the shittiest code possible (in my view on purpose) such that each time it can be interpreted slightly differently depending on who's being accused. This code is very hard to refactor, it calls various routines from libraries that have been long abandoned yet amended in other routines or functions that 'decorate' and change behavior. And then when there's something to understand or change they pretend lots of money to give you their interpretation and or provide changes. Law's are not bad intrinsically but it should be taught in school and be as simple as possible, or in other words, it should use the KISS principle.

RyanMcGreal 14y ago
Far be it for me to come to the defence of lawyers, but there are some mitigating circumstances that should be familiar to software developers: * Lots of laws look crufty to casual observers, but the reason is that they have been amended again and again and again over the years to accommodate various edge cases. * Laws are a structured, formal attempt to model human bevaviour, which is messy, fuzzy and unpredictable except at the statistical level. A clear, simple law may not be the best way to govern unclear, complex agents in a complex system. The temptation to throw out our laws and replace them with something simple and clear is dangerously close to the Second System Syndrome to which well-meaning software developers often fall prey.
- BrokenPipe 14y ago
  When the code gets cranky, its time to refactor. Piling shit on top of it just makes it worst. I'm not talking about NIHS or rewrites, I'm talking about refactoring. And lots of edge cases and special things are not a good thing in law or software I think.
  - RyanMcGreal 14y ago
    I don't disagree with you on the need for careful refactoring of our legal code. In fact, a few years ago I wrote an essay on this very topic: http://quandyfactory.com/blog/30/software_as_a_model_for_government http://quandyfactory.com/blog/30/software_as_a_model_for_gov... I do believe we need to exercise caution, balance and good judgment, and that most of the time, careful refactoring is more prudent and effective than throwing out the existing code and starting from scratch.
    - BrokenPipe 14y ago
      Agreed.
danso 14y ago
Lawyers don't write the "code" here, and that's a very important distinction.
- RyanMcGreal 14y ago
  With the caveat that a huge proportion of lawmakers are lawyers.
- lbcadden3 14y ago
  There staff lawyers are the ones actually writing the legislation.

RyanMcGreal 14y ago

Far be it for me to come to the defence of lawyers, but there are some mitigating circumstances that should be familiar to software developers: * Lots of laws look crufty to casual observers, but the reason is that they have been amended again and again and again over the years to accommodate various edge cases. * Laws are a structured, formal attempt to model human bevaviour, which is messy, fuzzy and unpredictable except at the statistical level. A clear, simple law may not be the best way to govern unclear, complex agents in a complex system. The temptation to throw out our laws and replace them with something simple and clear is dangerously close to the Second System Syndrome to which well-meaning software developers often fall prey.

BrokenPipe 14y ago
When the code gets cranky, its time to refactor. Piling shit on top of it just makes it worst. I'm not talking about NIHS or rewrites, I'm talking about refactoring. And lots of edge cases and special things are not a good thing in law or software I think.
- RyanMcGreal 14y ago
  I don't disagree with you on the need for careful refactoring of our legal code. In fact, a few years ago I wrote an essay on this very topic: http://quandyfactory.com/blog/30/software_as_a_model_for_government http://quandyfactory.com/blog/30/software_as_a_model_for_gov... I do believe we need to exercise caution, balance and good judgment, and that most of the time, careful refactoring is more prudent and effective than throwing out the existing code and starting from scratch.
  - BrokenPipe 14y ago
    Agreed.

danso 14y ago

Lawyers don't write the "code" here, and that's a very important distinction.

RyanMcGreal 14y ago
With the caveat that a huge proportion of lawmakers are lawyers.
lbcadden3 14y ago
There staff lawyers are the ones actually writing the legislation.