Re: Hackers and Painters and Lawyers

[Geoffrey Knauth <address@hidden>]

On Friday, May 16, 2003, at 10:32 US/Eastern, Guy Steele - Sun 
Microsystems Labs wrote:
> the system produces a kind of Darwinian pressure: the legal language 
> most likely to survive is that which on its face is most ambiguous or 
> difficult to understand.

If the software community had a Supreme Court (and court hierarchy), 
"legal" software would contain previously approved constructs, language 
innovation would be highly risky, the infrastructure would become 
increasingly complicated, and engineers would be as highly compensated 
and envied and as numerous as lawyers.  Are we there yet?  Is that 
where we're going?

International law built up to a certain point, then it was hit by world 
events, and how it will come out we won't know for decades. The 
software industry is going through a metamorphosis too.

Back to lightweight languages.  Lightweight means to me that it is easy 
to get off the ground and keep flying, it gives us wings, it gets us 
from A to B.  The Wright Brothers gave us wings 100 years ago.  What 
kind of gravity is our bogeyman today?

Geoffrey
--
Geoffrey S. Knauth | http://knauth.org/gsk