[kijeda]

The article states "law is perhaps the only field where being a pessimist is actually an advantage", but I actually find this is an attribute that programmers and lawyers share. In developing code, one is always trying to think of all the possible inputs and outputs includes the unintended corner cases in order to write robust code.

I would say the two professions are more alike than credit is given, and working as a programmer in a lawyer-heavy firm, I've often been told by those in the legal profession that programmers have the ability to think logically stepwise through law more clearly than others.

[unavoidable]

The thinking process behind both are very similar indeed. At the core of both is true problem solving. You are given a set of constraints and facts, and you have to apply some set of rules (man made laws, or algorithms) in order to take the input and create a result that you want.

I think it is for this reason that many on HN enjoy discussing the law (of course it does have many other practical consequences as well). And although OP did the opposite, I would encourage many technical minded people to consider law as an option - much of the reason that laws suck for technology is because the people who work with the law on a daily basis do not understand the technology, and it would be great if we had more general tech literacy in the legal profession.

[roel_v]

"You are given a set of constraints and facts, and you have to apply some set of rules (man made laws, or algorithms) in order to take the input and create a result that you want."

I'm a programmer and I have a law degree, but I don't quite agree with your assessment. Practicing law (as opposed to the study of it) isn't usually about applying the law to facts; most of the time, it's representing the facts in a way that is favorable to your party under a given set of rules. It's a lot more soul-crushing than I thought it would be (I still like the theoretical, academic aspects, so I stick to those areas now)

"I think it is for this reason that many on HN enjoy discussing the law"

Well now we're getting near a pet peeve of mine - the absolute cluelessness about law that most technologists have. Most take one or two paragraphs, read it literally in a way that is beneficial to their prejudices, and call themselves lawyers, using the 'law = algorithm' analogy. I see very little nuanced legal reasoning when it comes to topics nerds like to discuss (look no further than all the nonsense written about the Aaron Swartz case a few months ago, and the idiotic responses when people like Orin Kerr write an actually informed piece about it).

[MWil]

See, I found Orin Kerr's piece to be incredibly uninformed (as to the specifics of the case) because he literally wrote it by taking the complaint at full face value - this was despite the entire controversy being about whether there were facts to support allegations that Aaron was trespassing, broke and entered, stole property, etc...

but that's another topic, it was as you said at least more informed than the average person (but disappointing for a law professor and former CAFA prosecutor/defender).

and just to add to this conversation, I will have my law degree in a month and I'm just now starting to learn programming. I plan to use it in conjunction with things like Latex for building better briefs, building a robust issue bank, etc... - things that will enable me to be a better lawyer in practice.

[fatman]

Latex for briefs? Ah, the idealism of youth. (I was going to revolutionize legal research through artificial intelligence) Most lawyers don't have the time, and almost every court I practiced in had rules specifying a utilitarian uniformity that made fancy formatting superfluous.

[sthu11182]

I would agree. I think using Latex for a brief is likely to get a deputy clerk sending you a notice. District Courts will have local rules on formatting (with California having the oddest one I have seen yet).

[fatman]

What little similarity I found between the disciplines in law school evaporated in practice. I was at a middle of the pack Biglaw firm (not exactly chasing ambulances) and very few partners could form a logical argument. Not that they needed to - threats, leverage, and obfuscation were plenty effective with emotional clients, overworked/underqualified(domain knowledge) judges, and dumb opposing counsel.

[wink]

I think programming is a bit more rewarding in this special case as you can preempt the outcome with unit tests ;)

[RyanMcGreal]

Unit tests are merely approximations of what challenges you can imagine your application will need to face. An analogy can be drawn to the body of precedent in case law.

[randomdata]

Precedent only deals with regression, which is also useful to document in code, but should not be your only source of documentation.

The purpose of testing, though oft missed due to the name we have given it, is to document your code. The tests explain intent, usage, etc. that can often not be conveyed by the code alone. Verification that the documentation does what it claims comes as an added bonus, of course, and is why we recommend testing over writing comments. Though comments can also be useful in certain situations – right tool for the job and all that.

I feel like law could benefit greatly from something that mirrors TDD, not only to help convey intent of the law, which is information often lost as years pass, but also to help third-parties better understand what the law says. The exact same reasons why we write tests for code. Starting to write that documentation after the code is already in production, so to speak, seems too late.

[jacques_chester]

Law is like code. Documentation is nice. For law it's widely available. But all that counts is the law. Well-written documentation is not a substitute and a court will not give you leeway if you were mislead by mistaken documentation.

In common law countries, the entire process of law is actually a black box functional test. And again: that's the only test that counts. Everything else might be wrong.

[tyang]

Also painters.