> Much to the chagrin of the computer scientists who think it’s some sort of robust formal specification for civil society.
Law is actually code, just written in a language that is full of UB and you need to have if run on the system to know exactly what it does, the system being the hierarchy of jurisdictions.
> Law is actually code, just written in a language that is full of UB
Which is why legalese exists. To try to limit undefined behavior by being extremely verbose to cut out any loopholes.
Like...imagine a kid jumping on their bed. Mom says "Stop jumping on the bed!" and the kids stops. Comes back to the kid's room later, kid is jumping on the bed again, tells the kid to stop. Kid says "I'm not jumping, I'm hopping!" and goes into a diatribe about the difference between jumping and hopping, mom says to stop hopping and leaves. Goes back again later, kid is STILL jumping on the bed, and mom is angry! "You said no jumping or hopping, I'm not doing either, I'm bouncing!"
Eventually the mom has to say something like "Do not jump, hop, bounce, spring, leap, or otherwise propel yourself upwards or laterally from the bed, mattress, or any other part of furniture intended for sleeping".
And then it goes on even further, because she did not say, that the kid must never "propel themselves upwards or laterally from the bed", and only stopped that action in that moment ...
The law there is defining two categories manufacturers need to provide the parts to, changing it to AND would mean owners would have to be certified repair people to be covered.
Not trying to take a dig at your comment, but for others struggling to parse (as much as I was) what it was trying to say, here is the trick that helped me - place a comma right before “changing” or treat that word as the start of a new sentence.
Very fair I don't do the best job going and clarifying my comments some times. They come out a bit stream of consciousness. I did see your comment in time to make the change at least.
All good, no worries. I have the same tendency for writing singular sentences that should’ve honestly been paragraphs instead.
I’ve got some feedback about it at work, so now I genuinely try to be a bit better about it. It is a bit easier for me to be mindful of it on HN, but, as evident by my comment history, I am still far from being consistently good about it.
It is still often a “stream of consciousness written down as I would speak it outloud”, but now I at least started doublechecking the punctuation (or lack of it) for any potential confusion it could create before hitting send.
Much to the chagrin of the computer scientists who think it’s some sort of robust formal specification for civil society.