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 | Why Computer Programmers Would Make Good Legislators
Alan Burkhart | 20:50 22 Nov '09 |
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Makes one wonder how they QA new laws. Or do they just apply them directly to production (read: society) and hope for the best?
Visual Studio is an excellent GUIIDE.
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QA is supposed to be done by the Supreme Court, but that only happens after enough people have been hurt to cause a political firestorm, and always takes years. Even then it's a crapshoot, as the Supreme Court has for the past 40 years taken upon itself to usurp the powers granted only to Congress to make law instead of interpret it, it's only legitimate function. In simple terms, the legislative process is currently running open loop, and anyone who has survived a class in elementary control systems knows where that leads... There are a number of poles on the right side of the plane at the moment; things are bound to get interesting. 
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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Good discourse! I especially like the idea of legislation that doesn't rob Peter to pay Paul. When you rob Peter to pay Paul, Peter is going to get sore, and no one can have fun with a sore Peter.
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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Roger Wright wrote: no one can have fun with a sore Peter
Visual Studio is an excellent GUIIDE.
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Right On! 
Personally, I love the idea that Raymond spends his nights posting bad regexs to mailing lists under the pseudonym of Jane Smith. He'd be like a super hero, only more nerdy and less useful. [Trevel]
| FoldWithUs! | sighist | µLaunch - program launcher for server core and hyper-v server
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Oh man... I'll be laughing all day over that!
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Yup. The average social or legal problem is about as complicated as the average programming problem...
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Nice thought.
But there are some unpleasant realities that go with that.
The minute any money gets associated with a new law that money becomes somebody's "rice bowl".
So they fight tooth and nail to keep that money flowing. The expression as I recall is "someone's ox is gored".
When they killed off the Volstead Amendment (Prohibition in America) they had to go and get a whole other Amendment to do it.
The twenty-first. It's almost like the law is built like a series of vectors rather than a base.
I do like what are called "Sunset Clauses" which cause a law to expire if it isn't reinstated by the legislature.
They're a modern idea to do approximately what you ask; that the code be rolled back if the legislature is not happy with how it is working.
So, for example there are several tax cuts that were brought in during the Bush (W, not HW) that are set to expire. The dems now control every element that would renew them, and they won't renew those. (This is not a soapbox about an opinion on that subject, simply a statement of what is going on to illustrate the point).
On a lesser scale, there is a highway in the Denver Metro Area that is a Turnpike from I-25 to Boulder. It was originally a toll road and was set to expire when the road was payed for (maintenance being a different issue). When it got paid for, the toll ended. The state certainly could have come up with a 'change' to the original law to make it last longer or become permanent.
Now it is quite common for the people who run for office to be lawyers. If you are suggesting that almost any other profession could do at least as good a job you are probably on to something.
_____________________________
Every app cloud has a user whining.
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Now it is quite common for the people who run for office to be lawyers. If you are suggesting that almost any other profession could do at least as good a job you are probably on to something.
The original intent was for common folk to go to DC (or state gov't) and work for a few years, then return to private life (consent of the governed and all that). We've drifted far away from that ideal. Now we have political dynasties like the Kennedys and Bushes (Bush's?), and lifetime politicians like Robert Byrd and others. As much as anyone, the K Street lawyers and lobbyists run Washington. The longer one stays in DC, the more he / she is owned by the lobbyists.
As far as I'm concerned the whole bunch needs to step down.
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Even though there is good evidence most software engineering problems increase with amount of code, we try to solve them with more code. See a pattern?
We deal with stable platforms that behave consistently no matter what you throw at them. The same is our ideal component. People, on the other hand, behave a whole lotta different depending on what you throw.
We do know how to analyze changes rippling through a system - but we also want to minimize that. So legislation would be more of a Daily WTF - style maintenance job from hell than building the next killer app.
Our mantra is "never change a running system" - we'd end up far on the conservative spectrum, in one pool with revanchist conservatives and eco-nazis.
Just some thoughts.
Personally, I love the idea that Raymond spends his nights posting bad regexs to mailing lists under the pseudonym of Jane Smith. He'd be like a super hero, only more nerdy and less useful. [Trevel]
| FoldWithUs! | sighist | µLaunch - program launcher for server core and hyper-v server
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| Re: Why Computer Programmers Would Make Bad Legislators
Alan Burkhart | 4:25 23 Nov '09 |
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Good points, all. I tend to be just right of center on most issues, and often just go berserk over the lack of common sense in US legislation. We have people running the country who I wouldn't trust to run a lemonade stand.
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They would parse documents to realise laws about to be passed are stupid and unenforceable.
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