

Relative Efficency of Programming Languages vs. Legal Language (by Jeremy Zawodny) - joshwa
http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/009421.html

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mdkersey
What's scary is trying to write code that implements a legal document. That's
when you find out that much legal language is shot through with logical holes
big enough to drive a tank through.

I was asked to implement a municipality's recently-revised alarm permit
legislation. I read the old legislation, the new legislation and wrote down
questions that weren't covered by either (never mind how to handle the
transition between rule sets). At a meeting with all the guilty parties and
their lawyers no one was able to answer my questions. They were surprised and
embarrassed that so many details had been overlooked. An additional constraint
was that, given the political climate, the possibility of properly amending
the legislation was slim.

I made a list of suggestions to plug the holes and asked for a sign off. No
one wanted to accept responsibility. Finally a division chief relented and the
details were swept under the political rug as "regulatory implementation".

So my experience is that legal language is far too vague to translate directly
to code.

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daniel-cussen
Programming and legal are exactly alike: they try to make a precise and
unambiguous set of rules and procedures with words. They try to translate
language into reality. The difference is that the language of programming has
to abide by physics and logic, while the logic of legal has to abide by the
flaws of language.

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byrneseyeview
If only: <http://szabo.best.vwh.net/contractlanguage.html>

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vegashacker
From the article: "[Legalese] doesn't use modern techniques like subroutines
or standard libraries."

Hey, maybe these guys will be the ones to change that:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44361>

