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This is a probematic comment in any forum, but I'd think it'd be especially unwelcome in a forum filled with programmers. Because even assuming it's true that

This is a probematic comment in any forum, but I'd think it'd be especially unwelcome in a forum filled with programmers. Because even assuming it's true that there are 700 new distinct regulations, programmers should know better than to use regulations as a pejorative or high numbers of them as a proxy bugaboo. We're people whose job includes filling text editors with regulations specifying the inputs, tranformations, and actions of a program. Defining entities and creating specifications and rules for how they behave is how we make systems. 700 lines of code is generally a pretty low number for doing anything complex. 700 pages of code wouldn't write you a bot to regulate network communications businesses. If the current FCC produces that much writing about how they plan to do things, it says nothing about the quality of their plans.

freehunter 12y ago
Yes but by drawing that parallel, you have to realize that programmers represent totalitarian dictators. Software isn't a democracy. America is.
- wtallis 12y ago
  Even democracies run better with unambiguous rules.
- wwweston 12y ago
  I don't know what your job is like, but at mine, I'm accountable to various technical leadership, PMs, UX, and ultimately the client, from which all authority to commit code that goes to production is derived. :) And the FCC is an agent deriving its authority to regulate from legislation and working under elected executive authority. So I'm not sure what the connection with totalitarian dictatorship is.
  - freehunter 12y ago
    You write the rules that govern exactly how every aspect of the program runs. If a part of the program runs in a way that your government doesn't approve of, it gets modified or ripped out and replaced with code that does follow the rules exactly. You don't let the code decide for itself whether it should loop or not, you tell it exactly when it should loop and exactly when it should continue. Totalitarian governments don't exist of just one person, either.

freehunter 12y ago

Yes but by drawing that parallel, you have to realize that programmers represent totalitarian dictators. Software isn't a democracy. America is.

wtallis 12y ago
Even democracies run better with unambiguous rules.
wwweston 12y ago
I don't know what your job is like, but at mine, I'm accountable to various technical leadership, PMs, UX, and ultimately the client, from which all authority to commit code that goes to production is derived. :) And the FCC is an agent deriving its authority to regulate from legislation and working under elected executive authority. So I'm not sure what the connection with totalitarian dictatorship is.
- freehunter 12y ago
  You write the rules that govern exactly how every aspect of the program runs. If a part of the program runs in a way that your government doesn't approve of, it gets modified or ripped out and replaced with code that does follow the rules exactly. You don't let the code decide for itself whether it should loop or not, you tell it exactly when it should loop and exactly when it should continue. Totalitarian governments don't exist of just one person, either.