4 ms·

The field of programming might evolve similarly to the the field of law as time goes on. A lawyer friend told me his field used to be more accessible to everyd

The field of programming might evolve similarly to the the field of law as time goes on. A lawyer friend told me his field used to be more accessible to everyday people. Anyone could study cases and even learn enough to represent themselves and members of their communities. Law schools and licensing boards were developed to protect the lawyers' wages and prestige, and to insulate them from outside competition. The regulatory hoops did increase lawyers' salaries, but they also made it impossible for most people to afford legal services. Costly law school requirements prohibited women and ethnic minorities (e.g. Irish people) from entering the field. Programming is a young field. If the history of similar industries is any indication, it won't stay this open and loosely regulated forever. And incidents like the one in California demonstrate that the tides are changing...

snitko 13y ago
And this is why regulation is always harmful for the consumer.
- choult 13y ago
  Why is our drinking water so dirty? Oh yeah. It isn't. Regulation can solve many more ills than it can cause.
  - snitko 13y ago
    I wonder what is so magical about government that only it can determine whether something is safe or not. I'm pretty sure private consumer protection companies would do a much better job for less money.
    - nav1 13y ago
      How would a private consumer protection company enforce anything?
      - snitko 13y ago
        Ahh, and that's the point. It wouldn't need to. Because no one should enforce anything. It would only inform. Consumers must have a choice. When you start banning businesses from operating, you have countless possibilities for corruption and you remove choice from consumers, treating them as mindless idiots incapable of making an informed choice. And if you think they are, then they also shouldn't be allowed to vote.
        nav1 13y ago
        "Sorry none of the water suppliers in your area provide water safe for human consumption. Good luck!" Now that would be helpful. But sure, you can just move elsewhere. It's going to be easy selling your old house given that there is no clean water available. Edit: As a bonus, health insurance companies should deny you coverage because you live in a high risk area.
        snitko 13y ago
        If there is a demand for clean water at the price level where it is economically feasible to supply one, it will be supplied. If people prefer to spend less money and have dirty water, they made their choice too. Your case is completely hypothetical.
        scott_s 13y ago
        There are probably areas in this country that it would be more profitable for the water companies to stop serving. I think that it is a good thing that they cannot do that.
        snitko 13y ago
        If you are right, then these areas would remain without water supply at all. Last time I checked, government cannot force private companies to do business.
    - diydsp 13y ago
      That magic is public accountability and elections.
      - snitko 13y ago
        What happens to a company if it's not doing the right thing and is not providing me with a good service (in that case, consumer protection service)? It first loses money because I stop paying immediately and then it goes out of business pretty fast if I spread the word and people agree the service is bad. What happens to a politician if he doesn't keep his promise or if an agency doesn't perform as it should? Nothing. A politician keeps his office until the next election and the agency stays in business, possibly with the very same people in charge of it. Can I stop paying taxes? No. I go to jail if I do.
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      > I wonder what is so magical about government that only it can determine whether something is safe or not. The magic isn't the ability to determine whether something is safe; the magic, insofar as there is anything like that involved, is that government is the vehicle empowered by the people to do something about it once it has made the determination.
  - mindcrime 13y ago
    You have not shown that our drinking water is not, in fact, dirty. Nor have you shown that it is any cleaner than it would be in the absence of the regulations you seem so proud of.
    - fiblye 13y ago
      American drinking water is perfectly safe to drink basically anywhere in the country. Many places on earth don't have safe drinking water due to a lack of infrastructure and regulations mandating it. The expectation is that those people will buy water or attempt to purify it themselves, whereas in this country we're expected to be able to consume water delivered to us without a fear of getting ill. Regulation with the intention of saving lives is not a bad thing. I doubt anybody would say we should abolish driving laws and driver's license requirements because they're "regulations that limit innovation." Saying we should have safe drinking water in no way limits innovation or freedom either, yet some people seem to think we need to scrap this.
      - mindcrime 13y ago
        I actually do advocate abolishing driving / vehicle registration / inspection / etc. laws, but it has nothing to do with innovation. They just aren't needed and impose an unnecessary burden on many people, especially the poor.
  - crazy1van 13y ago
    Regulation is capable of solving common use problems like clean water and air -- a fact that is really a necessary evil. But why does this mean it should be able to shut down programming schools?
    - coralreef 13y ago
      There exists "for profit" schools that take young, naive students and don't end up giving them an education or value equal to the life-time of indebtedness that they bestow. Regulation of post-secondary educations programs, be they "game design", "communications", or "hacker" schools, is a a reasonable idea.
      - Crito 13y ago
        Those "for profit" schools are already regulated. They are predatory despite that.
      - crazy1van 13y ago
        I don't understand the dislike of "for profit" schools. Its a tax designation. The president of "non-profit" schools is still pulling in a fortune in salary.
  - jrs99 13y ago
    http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115883/drugs-drinking-water-new-epa-study-finds-more-we-knew http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115883/drugs-drinking-wat...
- zimbatm 13y ago
  And this is why a single example can never be used for a blanket statement.
- 1qaz2wsx3edc 13y ago
  This similarly happened in Canada. http://business.financialpost.com/2013/06/24/ontario-investigates-tech-bootcamp-bitmaker-labs/?__lsa=5c6b-fa21 http://business.financialpost.com/2013/06/24/ontario-investi... Days later, the Minister of Training, Colleges, and Universities Brad Duguid got involved and let the program continue under a careful watch, after some restructuring. http://readwrite.com/2013/07/03/canadian-coding-camp-bitmaker-labs-is-back-in-business#awesm=~ouzoPt97ip8i24 http://readwrite.com/2013/07/03/canadian-coding-camp-bitmake...
allochthon 13y ago
As a developer, this sounds to me like a nightmare scenario. There is nothing more meritocratic than software development. It's the results that count. Once we start allowing regulation and systematic barriers to entry, it will be bad for everyone. I personally do not see the law as a model to aspire to along any number of dimensions.
- dkuntz2 13y ago
  I disagree. Regulation can be beneficial in many cases, even if it drives up the barrier to entry a little. Certification for big projects, specifically public projects, is important, and exists in most fields (including ours, the US government requires contractors to be a certain CMMI level). Codifying certain requirements in law is not a terrible decision, going too far can be.
- SDGT 13y ago
  Specifications must be presented by a properly accredited government sponsor for the formal specification submission to the House of Specifications. Any changes to the specification will be voted on during one of the three days during the week in which the gathering is in session. Upon agreement by the House, the amended specification will be presented to the Deliberative Committee on Specifications,during which time the honorable Speaker of the Deliberative Committee on Specifications will query the members for additional amendments. If the specification is amended, it will be returned to the House for further deliberation and promoted again to the Committee. Upon agreement by the Committee, the specification will be published in the Specification Czars vestibule for community exposure for at least thirty days. All that for a to do list app :)
starxidas 13y ago
Programming is not really a young field. Besides, laws ARE indeed becoming more complicated whereas programming languages don't.
- saraid216 13y ago
  > Programming is not really a young field. Programming has been around for a century. Law has been around for a couple millennia. Do you have a different metric you'd prefer to use? > Besides, laws ARE indeed becoming more complicated whereas programming languages don't. Most newer versions of programming languages introduce new concepts. How is that not "becoming more complicated"?
adregan 13y ago
As a self taught developer, I love how open programming is. Also, I don't see how licensing could keep anyone from being a (successful) self taught programmer. Would they outlaw text editors for all but the accredited? Don't forget, you can still represent yourself in court.
- Crito 13y ago
  > "I don't see how licensing could keep anyone from being a (successful) self taught programmer" It is one more barrier that does not currently exist. Surmountable? Sure. But nevertheless yet another obstacle.
coralreef 13y ago
Maybe. You've never heard of a practicing lawyer who never went to law school. But you have heard of talented engineers who never went to college. The difference with software is that your work will always stand for itself, because the barrier to creating anything is so low. Unless you have to be credentialed to access an IDE and compiler, you'll always be able to learn and improve.
- bigiain 13y ago
  Programming is such a wide field though. There's people writing yet another CRUD web app backend, and there's people writing autopilot software for auto-landing passenger jets. (And many categories in between, or perhaps even outside that spectrum). I, for one, hope the people writing autopilot software have some formal training along the lines of a four year degree to back them up, rather than just a Githib account and some commonly used open source software. _Some_ "software engineering" really does have the risks and responsibilities of civil or mechanical engineering. There does need to be some sort of evaluation/certification of people who've been trained and tested appropriately for that - without at the same time denying completely unschooled enthusiasts to do what the want with less life-threatening hardware and software.
samstave 13y ago
And look at how many douchebags became lawyers. If we develop further into a technocratic society than we already are we will see people like Schmidt and suck dictating how our lives, rights and privacy evolves for their ability to make a profit.... Oh, wait....

snitko 13y ago

And this is why regulation is always harmful for the consumer.

choult 13y ago
Why is our drinking water so dirty? Oh yeah. It isn't. Regulation can solve many more ills than it can cause.
- snitko 13y ago
  I wonder what is so magical about government that only it can determine whether something is safe or not. I'm pretty sure private consumer protection companies would do a much better job for less money.
  - nav1 13y ago
    How would a private consumer protection company enforce anything?
    - snitko 13y ago
      Ahh, and that's the point. It wouldn't need to. Because no one should enforce anything. It would only inform. Consumers must have a choice. When you start banning businesses from operating, you have countless possibilities for corruption and you remove choice from consumers, treating them as mindless idiots incapable of making an informed choice. And if you think they are, then they also shouldn't be allowed to vote.
      - nav1 13y ago
        "Sorry none of the water suppliers in your area provide water safe for human consumption. Good luck!" Now that would be helpful. But sure, you can just move elsewhere. It's going to be easy selling your old house given that there is no clean water available. Edit: As a bonus, health insurance companies should deny you coverage because you live in a high risk area.
        snitko 13y ago
        If there is a demand for clean water at the price level where it is economically feasible to supply one, it will be supplied. If people prefer to spend less money and have dirty water, they made their choice too. Your case is completely hypothetical.
        scott_s 13y ago
        There are probably areas in this country that it would be more profitable for the water companies to stop serving. I think that it is a good thing that they cannot do that.
        snitko 13y ago
        If you are right, then these areas would remain without water supply at all. Last time I checked, government cannot force private companies to do business.
  - diydsp 13y ago
    That magic is public accountability and elections.
    - snitko 13y ago
      What happens to a company if it's not doing the right thing and is not providing me with a good service (in that case, consumer protection service)? It first loses money because I stop paying immediately and then it goes out of business pretty fast if I spread the word and people agree the service is bad. What happens to a politician if he doesn't keep his promise or if an agency doesn't perform as it should? Nothing. A politician keeps his office until the next election and the agency stays in business, possibly with the very same people in charge of it. Can I stop paying taxes? No. I go to jail if I do.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > I wonder what is so magical about government that only it can determine whether something is safe or not. The magic isn't the ability to determine whether something is safe; the magic, insofar as there is anything like that involved, is that government is the vehicle empowered by the people to do something about it once it has made the determination.
- mindcrime 13y ago
  You have not shown that our drinking water is not, in fact, dirty. Nor have you shown that it is any cleaner than it would be in the absence of the regulations you seem so proud of.
  - fiblye 13y ago
    American drinking water is perfectly safe to drink basically anywhere in the country. Many places on earth don't have safe drinking water due to a lack of infrastructure and regulations mandating it. The expectation is that those people will buy water or attempt to purify it themselves, whereas in this country we're expected to be able to consume water delivered to us without a fear of getting ill. Regulation with the intention of saving lives is not a bad thing. I doubt anybody would say we should abolish driving laws and driver's license requirements because they're "regulations that limit innovation." Saying we should have safe drinking water in no way limits innovation or freedom either, yet some people seem to think we need to scrap this.
    - mindcrime 13y ago
      I actually do advocate abolishing driving / vehicle registration / inspection / etc. laws, but it has nothing to do with innovation. They just aren't needed and impose an unnecessary burden on many people, especially the poor.
- crazy1van 13y ago
  Regulation is capable of solving common use problems like clean water and air -- a fact that is really a necessary evil. But why does this mean it should be able to shut down programming schools?
  - coralreef 13y ago
    There exists "for profit" schools that take young, naive students and don't end up giving them an education or value equal to the life-time of indebtedness that they bestow. Regulation of post-secondary educations programs, be they "game design", "communications", or "hacker" schools, is a a reasonable idea.
    - Crito 13y ago
      Those "for profit" schools are already regulated. They are predatory despite that.
    - crazy1van 13y ago
      I don't understand the dislike of "for profit" schools. Its a tax designation. The president of "non-profit" schools is still pulling in a fortune in salary.
- jrs99 13y ago
  http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115883/drugs-drinking-water-new-epa-study-finds-more-we-knew http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115883/drugs-drinking-wat...
zimbatm 13y ago
And this is why a single example can never be used for a blanket statement.
1qaz2wsx3edc 13y ago
This similarly happened in Canada. http://business.financialpost.com/2013/06/24/ontario-investigates-tech-bootcamp-bitmaker-labs/?__lsa=5c6b-fa21 http://business.financialpost.com/2013/06/24/ontario-investi... Days later, the Minister of Training, Colleges, and Universities Brad Duguid got involved and let the program continue under a careful watch, after some restructuring. http://readwrite.com/2013/07/03/canadian-coding-camp-bitmaker-labs-is-back-in-business#awesm=~ouzoPt97ip8i24 http://readwrite.com/2013/07/03/canadian-coding-camp-bitmake...

allochthon 13y ago

As a developer, this sounds to me like a nightmare scenario. There is nothing more meritocratic than software development. It's the results that count. Once we start allowing regulation and systematic barriers to entry, it will be bad for everyone. I personally do not see the law as a model to aspire to along any number of dimensions.

dkuntz2 13y ago
I disagree. Regulation can be beneficial in many cases, even if it drives up the barrier to entry a little. Certification for big projects, specifically public projects, is important, and exists in most fields (including ours, the US government requires contractors to be a certain CMMI level). Codifying certain requirements in law is not a terrible decision, going too far can be.
SDGT 13y ago
Specifications must be presented by a properly accredited government sponsor for the formal specification submission to the House of Specifications. Any changes to the specification will be voted on during one of the three days during the week in which the gathering is in session. Upon agreement by the House, the amended specification will be presented to the Deliberative Committee on Specifications,during which time the honorable Speaker of the Deliberative Committee on Specifications will query the members for additional amendments. If the specification is amended, it will be returned to the House for further deliberation and promoted again to the Committee. Upon agreement by the Committee, the specification will be published in the Specification Czars vestibule for community exposure for at least thirty days. All that for a to do list app :)

starxidas 13y ago

Programming is not really a young field. Besides, laws ARE indeed becoming more complicated whereas programming languages don't.

saraid216 13y ago
> Programming is not really a young field. Programming has been around for a century. Law has been around for a couple millennia. Do you have a different metric you'd prefer to use? > Besides, laws ARE indeed becoming more complicated whereas programming languages don't. Most newer versions of programming languages introduce new concepts. How is that not "becoming more complicated"?

adregan 13y ago

As a self taught developer, I love how open programming is. Also, I don't see how licensing could keep anyone from being a (successful) self taught programmer. Would they outlaw text editors for all but the accredited? Don't forget, you can still represent yourself in court.

Crito 13y ago
> "I don't see how licensing could keep anyone from being a (successful) self taught programmer" It is one more barrier that does not currently exist. Surmountable? Sure. But nevertheless yet another obstacle.

coralreef 13y ago

Maybe. You've never heard of a practicing lawyer who never went to law school. But you have heard of talented engineers who never went to college. The difference with software is that your work will always stand for itself, because the barrier to creating anything is so low. Unless you have to be credentialed to access an IDE and compiler, you'll always be able to learn and improve.

bigiain 13y ago
Programming is such a wide field though. There's people writing yet another CRUD web app backend, and there's people writing autopilot software for auto-landing passenger jets. (And many categories in between, or perhaps even outside that spectrum). I, for one, hope the people writing autopilot software have some formal training along the lines of a four year degree to back them up, rather than just a Githib account and some commonly used open source software. _Some_ "software engineering" really does have the risks and responsibilities of civil or mechanical engineering. There does need to be some sort of evaluation/certification of people who've been trained and tested appropriately for that - without at the same time denying completely unschooled enthusiasts to do what the want with less life-threatening hardware and software.

samstave 13y ago

And look at how many douchebags became lawyers. If we develop further into a technocratic society than we already are we will see people like Schmidt and suck dictating how our lives, rights and privacy evolves for their ability to make a profit.... Oh, wait....