Slashdot Mirror
Judge Doesn't Know What a Web Site is
An anonymous reader writes "A British judge admitted on Wednesday he was struggling to cope with basic terms like "Web site" in the trial of three men accused of inciting terrorism via the Internet.
Judge Peter Openshaw broke into the questioning of a witness about a Web forum used by alleged Islamist radicals.
"The trouble is I don't understand the language. I don't really understand what a Web site is". he told a London court during the trial of three men charged under anti-terrorism laws.
Prosecutor Mark Ellison briefly set aside his questioning to explain the terms "Web site" and "forum." An exchange followed in which the 59-year-old judge acknowledged: "I haven't quite grasped the concepts.""
True story:
I once was in a conversation with a highly paid Ivy League-educated lawyer. Somehow (don't ask) the fact that the sun's surface temperature is thousands of degrees came up. The lawyer said, "oh, is that how it stays up, then?" No one knew what she meant. "Well, is that why the sun doesn't fall down, because hot things rise?" she continued. Stunned silence. Then everyone speaking at once about, you know, the copernican view of the universe. The highly paid lawyer was not embarrassed. Instead she asked a lot of questions. They started out stupid, but over the course of 15 minutes of intense questioning she picked
up pretty much everything I knew about solar and planetary astronomy (which is a lot). By the end she was asking really clever questions I couldn't answer.
Lesson I learned: you get to be a highly paid lawyer by being smart, not by knowing anything in particular. And I would happily have her defend me in a trial.
Its things like this that *did* make me go to law school.
I currently work for a judge and he refuses to have a computer in his chambers. Well, ok... there is a computer in his chambers but its unplugged and in the corner, with the screen facing the wall. His secretary prints out his email for him and he dictates his replies onto tape.
The scary thing is that I'm not actually kidding or even exaggerating.
That said, he does have a computer at home and a personal email address that he seems quite capable of using.
You're absolutely right.
We've all read some of the overlong slashdot replies/nerd emails that go to great lengths and painstaking detail, dismantling every aspect of the parent poster's point. Usually these posts include specific references to higher authority - textbooks, articles, past examples and other random websites.
Its exactly this combination of arrogance and pedantry that makes a good lawyer. The obsessive need to be absolutely, comprehensively and demonstratably RIGHT and for everyone to know it.
I knew that when I went to law school. Two things did surprise me though:
1. Law nerds have exactly the same sense of humour as computer nerds (pun or other liguistic trick based jokes, Monty Python etc); and
2. It really is exactly the same thought pattern for legal problem solving as it is for software development problem solving.
A misplaced semi-colon or the use of the wrong synonym can be as destructive in a piece of legislation or a 20 page judgment as it can in any piece of code.
You should know better than to equate hacking skill with programming skill.
In turn, you are confusing programming skill with development skill.
But I still write better code than most of those people. Good code is code that is well documented, easy to understand, easy to verify, and easy to maintain.
This is software development as a whole, of which programming is a part.
But he doesn't sound like the kind of person I would ever hire to work on a real system.
No shit? He was a Delta Airlines pilot.
So, don't feel bad. You may not be an "advanced" programmer compared to him, but I bet you write code that is far more consistent, far better documented, and, ultimately, far more useful.
For fcuk's sake, just let the guy talk about his 63 year-old dad!