Number of Coders In Congress To Triple (From One To Three)

jfruh writes Last weekend, Tim Berners-Lee said that the UK needs more members of parliament who can code. Well, the most recent U.S. congressional election has obliged him on this side of the Atlantic: the number of coders in Congress has tripled, with the downside being that their numbers have gone from one to three.

Comments

I'll join Congress!

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous Coward, reporting for Green Party.

Re:I'll join Congress!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that is some dedicated trolling. I am impressed.

IQ of congress

[deodiaus2]

Is at an all time high.
However, I'd rather have morons in power than smart guys. The smart guys can really screw us!

Re:IQ of congress

[roc97007]

Is at an all time high.

However, I'd rather have morons in power than smart guys. The smart guys can really screw us!

Even worse, smart guys with the best of intentions.

Re:IQ of congress

[Macrat]

The smart guys can really screw us!

All coders are smart?

Re:IQ of congress

[GameboyRMH]

Was just gonna say this. I know a guy who can do all kinds of coding and believes that both evolution and climate change are not real. Another who thinks the moon landing was a hoax. Apart from these tinfoil-hatters, I also know some coders who are massive douchebags and even idiots.

Ability to code is no guarantee of good intelligence or character.

Re:IQ of congress

[GameboyRMH]

Addendum: Now that I think of it, if I had to choose between a politician who was a coder and one who wasn't a coder with no other information, I'd vote for the non-coder. Too high a percentage of the coders I know (or know of) are conspiracy nuts and/or egomaniac manchildren.

Re:IQ of congress

[Anonymous Coward]

Another who thinks the moon landing was a hoax.

Oh god, same here; I know a programmer who is both a moon landing and a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. I have no idea how a mind can simultaneously work rationally enough to write code and irrationally enough to be that stubbornly convinced of bullshit.

Sexist or bigoted assholes as coders I can understand; intelligence doesn't always breed empathy. But this? Nah.

Re:IQ of congress

[mysidia]

I'm good with coders in congress; as long as they have debugging experience, and most of the bugs were in code written by their peers.

Re:IQ of congress

[VAXcat]

There was a time, a golden age most of you have never even imagined, when, to work in IT, you had to be very smart, well educated, and very dedicated to coding and computers. Sadly, that decades gone Xanadu has been replaced by legions of people just looking for a paycheck, who have never seen any other platform than Windows, and whose main qualification is that they have a certification or two. Makes me sad to look back on it...

Re:IQ of congress

[dywolf]

When a Congressman becomes a Senator, the IQ of both houses improves increases.

Re:IQ of congress

[GameboyRMH]

My theory is that their mind just can't take a break from analyzing things, and the rabbit hole of the conspiracy universe gives them plenty to occupy their thoughts with, it's too tempting for them to keep out of. The complex world of conspiracies is more fun and interesting than boring ol' real life, right?

I wonder if they'd still be into it if they'd found some other hobby that requires heavy logical thinking skills instead. I notice a big chunk of amateur racers are IT guys, setting up the various systems on cars offers about as much mental challenge as you want to take on.

Re:IQ of congress

[Creepy]

Religion and political ideology indoctrination sometimes trump science, even with otherwise intelligent people. Proof: my brother believes both evolution and climate change are not real. He is a rich religious conservative republican that eats up both ideologies and listens to pretty much nothing but conservative talk radio. Other than that, he is also a brilliant electrical engineer with hundreds of patents that both codes and owns an electrical/computer engineering contracting company. Whenever people suggest global warming he says there is not enough evidence, and says the devil created old fossils and such to sway Christians from God and the truth. There is no way I can possibly fully disprove either assertion - no matter how much science I shove in his face, he will counter it with "not enough research," "the earth is in a warming cycle and will soon begin a cooling cycle like it has for millenniums" or some bullshit like that.

Can't say I've castrated a pig, but I did butcher chickens and shear sheep at my grandpa's farm. I got skillz.

Re:IQ of congress

[tnk1]

A world full of people like that means that a person of a skillset and interest that you are attributing to yourself should be able to find a very comfortable place.

I look at it this way. I'm not a fan of car salesmen. However, if I love cars, design a good one, and want to make a business out of it, I need car salesmen to sell the cars. Not all of them will love cars. Some of them will simply love making money or sales. They still help my dream to come true.

In theory, for every bunch of boot camp MCSEs out there, there needs to be at least one person who knows what they are doing. Although it feels like you may now be surrounded by careerists who don't love computing, those careerists ultimately make it possible for people who love computers to have a bigger niche to fit into.

The percentage of people who love computing against the careerists may be the same, or even lower than it was before, but the absolute number of enthusiasts has probably never been higher.

Re: IQ of congress

[Anonymous Coward]

Stay in context jimmy. This context switching serves no purpose.

Re:IQ of congress

[istartedi]

Yes, if they are not the sharpest knives in the drawer, they're less likely to stab you in the back.

Re:IQ of congress

[SJHillman]

If the bugs weren't written by their peers, they'd be features.

Re:IQ of congress

[perpenso]

I'm good with coders in congress; as long as they have debugging experience, and most of the bugs were in code written by their peers.

The problem is these coders will never see the 1.0 release before they are asked to vote on it. There are no opportunities to debug the first draft.

Re:IQ of congress

[roc97007]

Why debug the first draft when you have the entire nation acting as quality control?

Re:IQ of congress

[rasmusbr]

I think it might be the creative aspect of it. The social climate of these conspiracy scenes seems to revolve around the idea that everyone will refrain from debunking each other's theories, even if they clash logically. So you get to invent your own take on the course of events and underlying motives of the different actors in the conspiracy and nobody gets to call you out on it.

When I was maybe 10 or 11 I used to enjoy fantasizing about secret tunnels and stuff run by ancient secret organizations, so I can kind of relate.

It helps to meddle with creative hobbies like visual art or music, or indeed creative writing if that's what you like.

Re:IQ of congress

[quantaman]

Addendum: Now that I think of it, if I had to choose between a politician who was a coder and one who wasn't a coder with no other information, I'd vote for the non-coder. Too high a percentage of the coders I know (or know of) are conspiracy nuts and/or egomaniac manchildren.

I'm guessing a high percentage of the people you discuss issues with are coders.

A high percentage of people are conspiracy nuts and/or egomaniac (wo?)manchildren.

Re:IQ of congress

[Anonymous Coward]

Why debug the first draft when you have the entire nation acting as quality control?

Ah, extreme-agile-governing.

Re:IQ of congress

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow that's a great take on it. This train of thought has often depressed me but now it will make me happy instead!

I just wish I was surrounded by more enthusiasts...

Re:IQ of congress

[Archangel Michael]

Worked for Microsoft!

Re:IQ of congress

[quantaman]

My theory is that their mind just can't take a break from analyzing things, and the rabbit hole of the conspiracy universe gives them plenty to occupy their thoughts with, it's too tempting for them to keep out of. The complex world of conspiracies is more fun and interesting than boring ol' real life, right?

I wonder if they'd still be into it if they'd found some other hobby that requires heavy logical thinking skills instead. I notice a big chunk of amateur racers are IT guys, setting up the various systems on cars offers about as much mental challenge as you want to take on.

From what I can tell they get misled by the holes in reality.

For instance with 9/11 there are things that legitimately sound weird like WTC 7 supposedly being the only highrise to collapse from fire. If that is the case I'm guessing it was just a combination of weird coincidence and the fact that massive highrise fires are extremely rare, but that's not really why those conspiracy theories pop up.

I think the root cause of 9/11 style conspiracy theories is that 9/11 was such a big event that it was documented in extreme detail. That creates a very complex story, and like any complex story there's going to be plot holes due to unlikely events or because people screwed up writing it down.

Instead some people see that a few pieces of the puzzle don't make sense and conclude the entire puzzle is a lie exposed by those ill-fitting pieces. The story they write so the puzzle fits seamlessly is a conspiracy theory.

Re:IQ of congress

[xaotikdesigns]

I'm sure these guys are smart too. Why, they even have degrees from ITT Tech to back up their intelligence

Re:IQ of congress

[plopez]

Vauge requirements and design are par for the course.

Re:IQ of congress

[Archangel Michael]

You believe in Global Warming? What evidence have YOU personally seen to support Global Warming?

My guess, is that you don't believe in Global Warming at all, you believe what people have told you about global warming. For instance, can you explain why the polar caps grew last year (both of them) during "global warming" (or Climate Change)? Or Hurricanes lull in the Atlantic when the Global Warming Alarmists (like yourself) were spouting (especially after Sandy) all about how awful Global Warming was causing these horrible hurricanes? If you cannot explain it, without looking up Wikipedia or IPCC reports or whatever, you believe, without knowing.

And as a belief, it is something that has yet to be actually proven "beyond reasonable doubt". I have doubts, serious doubts, mainly because all the horrible predictions made by all the popular spokespeople have not come true. The polar caps, the hurricanes, the extreme HOT weather just hasn't occurred the way "science" predicted it would.

But go ahead, keep laughing at people who believe what others say, because you're in the same exact group. You're just too arrogant to realize it.

Re:IQ of congress

[Anonymous Coward]

You've successfully made the point that a lack of religious belief is no guarantee of good intelligence or character. If that was the point that you were trying to make, then congratulations.

Re:IQ of congress

[slapout]

But it was a conspiracy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo_nltYf9gw

Re:IQ of congress

[blue9steel]

Sadly, that decades gone Xanadu has been replaced by legions of people just looking for a paycheck, who have never seen any other platform than Windows, and whose main qualification is that they have a certification or two.

Good news! That decade is gone also. Now we're on to a new decade with all new things to complain about!

Re:IQ of congress

[ShanghaiBill]

When future president James Garfield was a congressman, he published a new and innovative proof of the Pythagorean theorem. So not all congressmen were dumb. If computers existed in the 1870s, he probably would have been a coder.

Re:IQ of congress

[amicusNYCL]

as long as they have debugging experience

Don't get your hopes up. Despite what the summary says, the article says the complete opposite. The newly elected members do not have any "coders" (god I hate that word), but they do contain 2 people with CS degrees. One of them went to work for the CIA on counterterrorism, followed by working for a cybersecurity company, and the other joined the Air Force and then became a lawyer. They are not software developers, they are people who majored in computer science.

Re:IQ of congress

[Anonymous Coward]

They only write in Java and VB that they learned from a coder bootcamp over the summer. We're doomed.

Re:IQ of congress

[CanHasDIY]

If I was a smart guy, I'd make everyone think I'm a moron, so I could do anything I wanted and the real morons would always let it slide.

Re:IQ of congress

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure that's not true of your average politician?

Re:IQ of congress

[Creepy]

I don't pretend to be a climate scientist, so I have to go off of charts and information they provide. I also didn't jump on a bandwagon, I read arguments by both sides and studies.

In the end, there was a paper where something like 97% of scientists in the climate sciences field agree in climate change/global warming including the biggest naysayer that most republicans were using as a reference for a long time. The major flaw in the 97% study I believe was that about 75% of them assumed humans were at fault as part of their study, but you've still got 22% vs 3% or less with no pre-assumptions. If you don't believe them, here is a simple NASA chart showing carbon dioxide levels for the past 650000 years. That shows greenhouse gasses up a lot in a short period of time. It could be caused by emissions, chopping down rainforests, or whatever combo, but the bottom line is carbon dioxide is at the highest level in 650000 years and it happened in a short period of time. The earth takes a long time to warm and cool - we may not notice the effects of this for 20000 years or more and we may be able to fix it in the meantime and never see change.

But if you are like my brother, you will deny any climate results older than 10000 years because the devil put them there. As I said, there always will be naysayers.

Re:IQ of congress

[Anonymous Coward]

Not the OP and an atheist, belief or lack of belief has nothing to do with intelligence or character. I'm good at what I do and ethical because it allows me to fool all the chattel into electing me benevolent dictator for life. I'm just following the Putin plan to global dominance.

Re:IQ of congress

[Anonymous Coward]

Too high a percentage of the coders I know (or know of) are conspiracy nuts and/or egomaniac manchildren.

and you think that's just a coincidence I suppose.

Re:IQ of congress

[amicusNYCL]

For instance, can you explain why the polar caps grew last year (both of them) during "global warming" (or Climate Change)?

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the polar caps will either grow or shrink (or both!) every single year, probably based largely on the local temperatures, amount of precipitation, etc. The real question would be how much they grew versus the average growth, and whether they are growing less than they used to. Saying that global warming doesn't exist because the polar caps grew last year is not evidence. What if the polar caps grow by an average of 10 feet every year, but last year they only grew 6 inches? They still grew, but that fact alone is not evidence that would contradict any of the claims regarding climate change.

For example, according to this data, it looks like the sea ice had below average growth for 2012 and 2014 between August and December, even though the rate is still close to 2 standard deviations from the average growth between 1981 and 2010. Farther down that page, it looks like the growth for all years after 2010 is below the average for 1981-2010, though still relatively close. This is the climate system of a planet we're talking about though, if you're expecting huge dramatic changes from one year to the next you're probably going to be disappointed unless we can get China to really accelerate all of those coal plants being built. Climate change looks like a long-term event, especially right around the times where our damaging effects on the planet are just beginning to overcome the planet's ability to regenerate. But don't worry, the more shit we add to the atmosphere year over year, the faster things will start to change once the planet isn't able to keep up.

Or Hurricanes lull in the Atlantic when the Global Warming Alarmists (like yourself) were spouting (especially after Sandy) all about how awful Global Warming was causing these horrible hurricanes?

If it's a true statement to say that climate change and higher temperatures in general will cause more powerful hurricanes, does that necessarily mean that every year there will be a large number of very powerful hurricanes?

I have doubts, serious doubts, mainly because all the horrible predictions made by all the popular spokespeople have not come true. The polar caps, the hurricanes, the extreme HOT weather just hasn't occurred the way "science" predicted it would.

Fear not my doubting friend, because scientific predictions are getting better and more accurate all the time. Here's a video which talks about the new OCO-2 satellite and how it will help us visualize what is going on in order to make more accurate predictions. Note how effective the planet is at reducing all of that CO2 in the atmosphere, it's actually very impressive. But what happens when our CO2 output starts to be more than the planet can handle, where every year begins with just a little more CO2 than the previous year? Good things aren't going to happen. So, where is that point? Have we already hit it? What if we have? How would we know? A couple CO2-monitoring satellites in space will probably be a good place to start answering those questions, so expect data from those starting next year.

That simulation is interesting to watch, but it's just a simulation of what happened in 2006. One major point where the simulation fails: at the beginning (1/1/2006) there is virtually no CO2 in the atmosphere, and you see it build up. At the end of the year (12/31/2006) there is quite a bit of CO2. I suspect that the fact that the simulation begins with very little CO2 is more for illustrative purposes of the simulation and does not actually imply that most years begin with little to no CO2. It actually looks like the opposite, winte

Re:IQ of congress

[amicusNYCL]

When a Congressman becomes a Senator, the IQ of both houses improves increases.

FYI, a Senator is also a Congressman.

Re:IQ of congress

[Anonymous Coward]

> I also know some coders who are massive douchebags

I don't know why this is relevant to politics. The minute you start saying that personality and charisma are the main thing a poltician needs, and that anything else is incidental, you're pretty much saying a politician's main job should be to lie to people. I thought politics was supposed to be policy, decision making.

Re:IQ of congress

[mjwalshe]

you do know how parliamentary procedure works with you know amendments to motions :-) id suggest reading Citrine and Roberts rules as background than the standing orders and rules of debate for the congress before making that assumption

Re:IQ of congress

[Anonymous Coward]

I've also noticed that being employed as a coder is also no guarantee of coding ability, either.

Re:IQ of congress

[Archangel Michael]

I don't deny "climate results" because those be facts. Projections into the future, presented as "factual" are not actual facts, they are beliefs built upon "scientific" Estimations and models that have so far completely failed in every definitively stated way possible. Yet you still believe them to be accurate and factual, using appeal to authority as your logical reason. FYI, Appeal to authority is a logical fallacy.

You have ONE stated scientific fact in your response to me, about CO2 increases. What you don't do is explain how CO2 is not the ONLY green house gas and is a very small part of all greenhouse gases in the Atmosphere.The reason why CO2 doesn't have the effect that most people are led to believe (there's that word again) is because it the very small changes to the very small amount of CO2 cannot have the effect that people like Al Gore want to claim. It is simply not possible. Variance in Water Vapor is much higher and in higher quantities and effects than CO2, and that is why I do not, cannot believe CO2 is having the effect that Al Gore suggested.

There are naysayers that aren't technically illiterate. There are plenty of people who aren't buying the hype, they just aren't funded by the global elitists who think people are stupid and need to be lied to ... for their own good of course.

Or as I say, Piltdown man was once consensus proof of Evolution.

Re:IQ of congress

[Archangel Michael]

TL;DNR

However, I'll just pick one point.

If it's a true statement to say that climate change and higher temperatures in general will cause more powerful hurricanes, does that necessarily mean that every year there will be a large number of very powerful hurricanes?

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetw...

Okay, you may be right. But they also said increased number of and more powerful hurricanes. The problem is, scientifically speaking (facts) we actually don't know anything due to a historically long period without a hurricane making landfall. We're going on 10 years without a major hurricane making landfall.

Hard to tell if they are more powerful if they don't show up, don't you think? The problem is that they made predictions that are completely falsified at this point. How can anyone believe anything they say will happen moving forward? I don't believe they know anything other than CO2 is increasing.

Re:IQ of congress

[perpenso]

you do know how parliamentary procedure works with you know amendments to motions :-) id suggest reading Citrine and Roberts rules as background than the standing orders and rules of debate for the congress before making that assumption

Did you ever watch CSPAN when Obamacare was being drafted? I watched one night. Something drafted in the backrooms by who knows who was brought out. Democrats offered zero amendments. Some republicans offered BS amendments and were rightfully voted down. Other republicans offered constructive well thought out amendments with explanations for the problem / unintended consequence they were addressing. Every single one of these amendments were voted down **without** discussion. No questions. No debate. No discussion. Nothing. It was as if the current text of the bill was negotiated somewhere else behind closed doors and **zero** changes could be made.

Textbooks, and Electric Company videos, about bills ... meet the real world.

Re:IQ of congress

[perpenso]

Vauge requirements and design are par for the course.

Shipping without any testing and bug fixes at all are not.

Re:IQ of congress

[dgatwood]

Every change means more headaches when the bill goes to reconciliation between the two houses. That’s one of the big disadvantages of a bicameral legislature—there’s a strong disincentive to fixing problems by the time a bill gets out of committee, which means if you’re not on the committee, you usually have little to no say unless the problem with the bill is grave, in which case enough people vote against it (you hope) to keep it from passing, and the committee has to rethink it.

This also points to a serious flaw in the way committees operate. Instead of a committee consisting of everyone with an interest in an issue, with open discussion, the committees are carefully selected groups consisting of a proportional number of members of each party, and are not necessarily the people who are most interested in that particular issue, but rather the people who are ostensibly most interested in the broader topic of the committee (at best). This is pretty much the exact opposite of the way that things should be done, assuming the goal is to actually pass the best, most reasonable bill possible.

So yes, the entire system is pretty much broken from top to bottom, to such a degree that progress is always made in spite of the system, never because of it. And that’s part of the reason so many bills end up being basically prewritten by lobbyists.

Re:IQ of congress

[amaurea]

I've thought a bit about this too, but I arrived at the opposite conclusion. I think the single most valuable thing one gets from being a programmer is debugging experience, which is actually quite similar to the scientific method: You start with a mental model of how your program works. You observe symptoms that indicate that that model is wrong - the program isn't behaving according to the model. You form a new model based on the observed behavior, and then modify the program to test the new model. And repeat until you have a model that correctly predicts the future behavior or the program.

I can't think of many better ways to teach yourself that your mental model of the world can be wrong and the importance of testing it. Lacking that insight seems to be one of the defining characteristics of crackpots. That's why I think it's surprising to hear all the anecdotes here of crackpot programmers. Based on the reasoning above I would have expected them to be among the more madness-resistant segments of the population.

Re:IQ of congress

[deodiaus2]

Originally, I was thinking of Mark Twain's quote, "Suppose you are an idiot". Now suppose that you are a member of Congress". Now, I am being redundant".
This came up in an different context. When Ralph Reed tool over Moral Majority from Jerry Falwell. Falwell was a idiot, but Reed presented a new threat as he took the time to think things out, in how issues would benefit his cause and the detriment of his opposition.
blame my style on e.e. elliot.

Re:IQ of congress

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think it's that coding causes craziness, but in my experience, computer science is perfect for attracting crazies. Specifically, that group of "sciency" people who don't actually believe in science. People with logical brains that are nonetheless impeded by a few very illogical (and very human) beliefs.

It's perfect because it's doesn't require the acceptance of actual science like biology, chemistry, or even physics, which might require religious or conspiracy nuts to believe (or stop believing) in things like evolution, chemtrails, space exploration, climate change, vaccinations, etc. Outside of pure mathematics (which is both too hard and too "useless" for the vast majority of people) there's not really anything like CS.

I actually think Slashdot has the largest group of those people on the internet. Just take a look at any article about climate change. Most of the non-crazy techies are reading sites like Ars, TechCrunch, Gizmodo, etc. Slashdot, probably by virtue of being around the longest and having an older userbase, is stuck with climate change denying libertarians.

Re:IQ of congress

[dywolf]

Not really, no. The words are segregated such that Congressman referred specifically to a member of the House of Representitives. Congressman Joe Smoe is a member of the House. You wouldnt say Congressman Bob Smith to refer to a Senator as Senator is his proper title. The phrase properly used to apply to generically to ether side is Member of Congress.

The closest you can get to use the word to apply to both sides, is to use it in the informal sense, ie lower case "congressman" as opposed to the formal sense "Congressman", which I used which clearly indicates usage of the word in the formal, title sense. This is still not really common usage though as there few cases where refering to a Senator or group of Senators informally still wouldnt be better served by using "senator(s)".

Just FYI.

Re:IQ of congress

[pnutjam]

Just a cursory glance at this page shows plenty of hurricans making landfall in the last 10 years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

Re:IQ of congress

[Archangel Michael]

Major Hurricane. The point. If hurricanes make landfall aren't of the type being hyped by global warming alarmists, in such a lull that is historic in nature, the claims are simply falsified. While you can be pendantic about verbiage and argue technicalities, those things do no support the thesis that "Global Warming is going to cause more and more severe hurricanes". Neither has actually happened.

Re:IQ of congress

[david_thornley]

Remember, kids, any field where you have to be very smart, well educated, and very dedicated just to get in will have tons of people who aren't as smart, as well educated, or as unwilling to suffer for their expertise who want the jobs. This means that the employers can pay crap and abuse their employees, because if one quits there's one almost as smart and educated who will take just a little more crap to work in the field. Alternately, the job is just so bleeping difficult that it will burn out people who do it and haunt them for life.

Just look at what happens in really creative fields. It's very difficult to make a decent living as an artist of any sort. Scientists and other academic scholars often face bruising competition for years while being exploited unless and until they are lucky enough to find a good industry position or get a tenure track appointment. The ones who actually succeed may have very satisfying lives, but getting there is arduous at best.

Re: IQ of congress

[smaddox]

Cognitive dissonance. The mind is not internally consistent.

Re:IQ of congress

[plopez]

You must be new to software development....

Re:IQ of congress

[amicusNYCL]

TL;DNR

However, I'll just pick one point.

I'll do you one better, and ignore your entire post. Debating is fun.

Re:IQ of congress

[amicusNYCL]

Not really, no.

Really though, yeah. Congress is made up of the House Of Representatives and the Senate. Therefore, a Senator is also a Congressman. A Representative is a Congressman also. A Representative is not a Senator, and a Senator is not a Representative. Really. That's how it actually works. Just because people might prefer to refer to Representatives as the more general Congressmen does not mean that Senators are not also Congressmen.

Re:IQ of congress

[mjwalshe]

hmm where these "constructive well thought out amendments " actually spoiling amendments?

Re:IQ of congress

[perpenso]

hmm where these "constructive well thought out amendments " actually spoiling amendments?

No. Those I lumped under "Some republicans offered BS amendments and were rightfully voted down.".

What I thought "constructive well thought out amendments" were more like someone identifying a loophole/exploit and suggesting a fix. A fix that did not go against the spirit and intent of the legislation. Reasonable constructive criticisms and suggestions. And I want to emphasize these loopholes and exploits were not even discussed. Zero questions, zero debate, zero discussion; just an immediate no vote. Its not like they thought about it and decided no.

Seriously, the committee was complete theatre. It truly seemed that the legislation was written in a closed back room process and that absolutely no changes were going to be allowed. All the Democrats were apparently aware of this and played their proper role and offered no amendments at all, asked no questions, offered no discussion.

"Coders" and "Coding"

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it just me, or do "Coders" and "Coding" just sound lazy? What ever happened to "programmers" or "software developers".

Don't get me started on the shortening of "technology" to "tech", either. bleh.

-ph

Re:"Coders" and "Coding"

[Anonymous Coward]

When referring to web development the low bar of "coding" may be more appropriate.

Re:"Coders" and "Coding"

[neoritter]

Web pages or web applications?

Re:"Coders" and "Coding"

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt he knows the difference. I've written some web apps with pretty sophisticated backends.

UX, on the other hand, is not my forte.

Re:"Coders" and "Coding"

[Anonymous Coward]

Sssh. The popular kids in school have picked up on our slang, and now are using it to belittle us. Now wait to be shuffled into your pen like the filthy animal you are and ruled by the asshole who never passed algebra, but still makes more than you do and is married to a supermodel.

Well that's a start...

[nichogenius]

...now figure out how to get all that legal code to compile without error... and while you are at it, fix the thread locking issues that keeps coming up between Republicans and Democrats.

Re:Well that's a start...

[MightyYar]

They'll be too busy fighting over the space they get in the Capitol basement.

Re:Well that's a start...

[nichogenius]

Hey, if a set of 3 programmers can get all of the U.S. legal code to compile, even if they do eff it up, I'd be extremely impressed... but first someone should write a programming language that can actually run legal code.

Re:Well that's a start...

[adonoman]

I'd love to see an expert system that could take in some form of legal jargon, the details of a specific situation, and spit out an unambiguous application. Of course, then it could lead to all sorts of "hacking" the system. Imagine winning a court case because of an off-by-one error in a law, or a buffer overrun vulnerability in a contract that allowed for arbitrary code execution.

Re:Well that's a start...

[Anonymous Coward]

someone should write a programming language that can actually run legal code.

ERROR: DOES NOT COMPUTE

Re:Well that's a start...

[nichogenius]

I too would love to see this... that's what inspired the comment. Every time I try to wade through legal code, it just looks like a bunch of variable initializations and messy if/then logic. Putting it through a compiler would at least force certain standards.

Re:Well that's a start...

[fustakrakich]

What 'locking' issues are you talking about? Oh, you must mean locking out anybody who is not a republican or democrat. I'm pretty sure that the people financing the whole thing are getting their money's worth.The glitches you see on the TV are quite trivial. The machine is working very smoothly. The state's power remains unchallenged. The numbers of coders and gigolos in congress makes no difference. What do they bring to the campaign 'donors'? That is what will determine their position and power.

Re:Well that's a start...

[nichogenius]

Of course, then it could lead to all sorts of "hacking" the system. Imagine winning a court case because of an off-by-one error in a law, or a buffer overrun vulnerability in a contract that allowed for arbitrary code execution.

I guess we'd just have to open-source it and when disputes arise run the code line by line, debug style.

Re:Well that's a start...

[nichogenius]

Thread-locking: When two threads try to write to the same memory at the same time... crap happens... progress stops. So in this sense, I guess Republicans and Democrats bickering would be more like infinite indirect recursion? Oh well, thread-locking sounded cooler.

Re:Well that's a start...

[Anonymous Coward]

And imagine if there was the equivalent of coverity, and all new legislation had to be run through it to check for stupid lawmaking errors :)

Re:Well that's a start...

[Anonymous Coward]

would be a start to use git like this (no, its outdated). And in order to pass, a commit message must contain "signed-off by: barack obama".

Re:Well that's a start...

[NotInHere]

No, this law should have tabs!

Re:Well that's a start...

[Anonymous Coward]

If China was smart they would implement exactly what the US has ended up with: divide their One Party into two barely distinguishable "front" parties to give the illusion of choice, while the real System churns happily away in the background. No other country could complain, because it's basically what happens everywhere, but it would get rid of the "one party state" image problem.

real dissent is squashed out everywhere

Re:Well that's a start...

[nichogenius]

ooooh.... a git repository for each law would be fun. In retrospect, being able to see the different proposed branches/commits/forks would be really interesting in the next elections "i told ya so" debate.

Re:Well that's a start...

[fustakrakich]

Please, the bickering is theater, the play has been running with the same actors for 150 years... and everything is progressing as planned. It hasn't stopped at all. In fact, it is accelerating. Somebody put a brick on the gas pedal 35 years ago.

Re:Well that's a start...

[Creepy]

The problem is, the code looks something like this right now

#include <sys/types.h>
#include <unistd.h>

int dem = 1;
int rep = 1;

void main() {
    while (dem||rep)
    {
        fork();
    }
}

For you non programmers, that is a slight take on an old UNIX joke for taking down the mainframe before we had process limits. Pretty sure congress doesn't have any limits, and they certainly can't budget.

Re:Well that's a start...

[Sarten-X]

I'm not sure if you're serious.

The expert system you're looking for is a "judge".

What's actually written in legislation or on a contract doesn't matter. What matters is how a judge will interpret that law or contract in the context of your particular case. Yes, there have certainly been cases where a criminal defendant has gotten away with something because it wasn't technically a crime, and many contracts have been useless because they didn't explicitly prohibit a particular interpretation.

Just like computer programs, all well-tested legal "programs" are far more complicated in detail than their basic design document. There are many edge cases and known weaknesses to account for, leading to many seemingly-irrelevant statements.

Re:Well that's a start...

[sconeu]

<PEDANTIC> main() returns int </PEDANTIC>

Re:Well that's a start...

[fustakrakich]

If China was smart...

Why do you say that? The leadership is experiencing no difficulties. Their wealth is very secure. Rocking the boat would only jeopardize it. Majority rule only makes things very messy.

Re:Well that's a start...

[s.petry]

Are kidding me? We can compile a program for the government in a few lines. Note that I don't think this is completely illegitimate.!

#include <stdio.h>
void main () {
printf("Hello America\n");
while (1) {
sleep(9999);
}
}

Re:Well that's a start...

[nichogenius]

I'm not after programs that are 'useful to a government'... I want the actual bills that congress writes to be in a state where a compiler won't crap its binary pants.

Re:Well that's a start...

[Anonymous Coward]

<counter-pedantic>Not in C++.</counter-pedantic>

Re:Well that's a start...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not in early C compilers! One such example, Lattice C for Amiga. Headers for most Unicies allow main() to return either in or void.

Re:Well that's a start...

[swillden]

<counter-pedantic>Not in C++.</counter-pedantic>

Eh? The C++ standard explicitly forbids "void main()". From the standard:

An implementation shall not predefine the main function. This function shall not be overloaded. It shall have a return type of type int, but otherwise its type is implementation-defined. All implementations shall allow both of the following definitions of main:

int main() { /* ... */ }

and

int main(int argc, char* argv[]) { /* ... */ }

Re:Well that's a start...

[Anonymous Coward]

As somebody else stated, you're entirely wrong. We don't even have to quote the standard to realize this: how were you planning on returning an exit code, if main() returns void?

Re:Well that's a start...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't know how talking about congress in a thread about congress can be offtopic (like having a guy who can work a computer is really relevant, sheesh!), but.. thems the breaks.. I guess another shill with mod points got offended and has to go out and repair the funky facade...again.. poor soul. I almost feel sorry.

Re:Well that's a start...

[david_thornley]

For that to happen, laws would have to be unambiguous, and they frequently aren't. Sometimes they're ambiguous because they had to be to get passed. Sometimes the concepts are fuzzy. Would you care to define precisely what is allowable self-defense and what isn't? Exactly what the boundaries of reckless driving are?

Well 1 Real One

[glennrrr]

So 2 people who've gotten academic degrees in CS, but never worked professionally as coders, and one actual developer: the Republican Majority Whip Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana.

Re:Well 1 Real One

[hij]

Someone needs to tell Tim Berners-Lee that not all programmers agree on things such as patents, copyright, and the colour of the sky.

Re:Well 1 Real One

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone needs to tell Tim Berners-Lee that not all programmers agree on things such as patents, copyright, and the colour of the sky.

Or the spelling of "color"

Re:Well 1 Real One

[Anonymous Coward]

When I'm awake, its most times black.

Re:Well 1 Real One

[adonoman]

All the "real programmers" do.

Re:Well 1 Real One

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. These guys con't qualify as "coders".

To be a coder, don't you kinda have to do it for a living?? Or as a hobby, but seriously?

To me, a lawyer doesn't count as a coder.

Re:Well 1 Real One

[kwiecmmm]

All the "real programmers" do.

We all know that the color of the sky is: #87ceeb

Re:Well 1 Real One

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't ruin my fantasy with your much less interesting reality...I've long hoped that issues being divided over "party lines" would mean "emacs vs VI"

Re:Well 1 Real One

[ProzacPatient]

All the "real programmers" do.

We all know that the color of the sky is: #87ceeb

Except in North Carolina where the sky is #56a0d3

Re:Well 1 Real One

[dgatwood]

Except on little endian architectures, where the sky is d3a056#.

Ah, define "coder" please.

[geekmux]

Given the average age of those serving in Congress, perhaps it's important to define the term "coder" here.

Sure it's always beneficial to have a few "geeks" as lawmakers, but I kinda doubt that someone who took a FORTRAN class a few decades ago is going to be providing much value towards policy governing next-gen internet technologies.

Re:Ah, define "coder" please.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure it's always beneficial to have a few "geeks" as lawmakers, but I kinda doubt that someone who took a FORTRAN class a few decades ago is going to be providing much value towards policy governing next-gen internet technologies.

"Insightful"? Really, Slashdot!

All right, you too will be old geeks some day, thinking "but I, however, am something else" ...

If nothing less, experience makes you eventually overcome your initial lack of talent and insight, if you had one back then. You can't understand and appreciate new technologies, their spirit and their intent unless you did your time catering to the quirks of bad old technology (and you remember times when that old and bad was new and liberating from an even older and even worse technology).

That are the fruits of old age. Fresh look on things is good, historical perspective on them is also essential. You need both, therefore you need to have mixed teams.

Oh, and decades pass at just a blink eye moment. You may change to others, but not to yourself. You'll see.

Oh god, no.

[Anonymous Coward]

Every coder I've ever met has a black-and-white worldview that is utterly incompatible with formulating any sort of big-picture view of managing a country. Government is not an algorithm and can *not* be managed like one. Government is about grey areas, and managing people, not computer programs. Get the coders out of congress and into the GSO where they belong.

Re:Oh god, no.

[neonKow]

Every coder I've ever met has a black-and-white worldview

Hm... So I take it you're a coder as well?

Re:Oh god, no.

[kwiecmmm]

Every coder I've ever met has a black-and-white worldview

Hasn't the US Congress by folks with a black and white view for the past 4 years? It just happens that the folks in one part see black and the other see white. And neither will work together, because that would disrupt their worldview.

Re:Oh god, no.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well he did say everything is black-and-white....

The thing is coders are underrepresented as we have no reason to be there. Oh sure what goes on there affects us.

We are usually fairly poor at following our own rules much less coming up with rules for others to follow. Many can follow a flow of code when it suits them but not when they need to. I remember railing against Bush in my group of republicans (they thought I had become an unhinged democrat). I railed against lowering taxes and sending out 'refund checks'. This same group now bitches about budget deficits. They did not think thru what removing funding would do. Just like the democrats I work with think I am some sort of unhinged republican now. Because I rail against obamacare which does nothing more than increase by 3x our insurance rates and millions are still not covered. None want to think thru where does it start and where does it land. Simple debugging techniques. They want to be part of the 'team' and 'follow the consensus'.

Putting more coders in gov will not fix that money pit, that claims it is helping us and accomplishing the exact opposite.

Re:Oh god, no.

[Nutria]

scientists, (which is how come we still get to have shitstorms over people wearing pimp shirts)

You really have to explain that one...

Re:Oh god, no.

[Anonymous Coward]

Matt Taylor of the European Space Agency.

http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/13/7213819/your-bowling-shirt-is-holding-back-progress

Re:Oh god, no.

[CanHasDIY]

That is how it appears, isn't it? 'Course, when you look below the surface, you'll discover that when it comes to the truly important things - indefinite detention of Americans without charges, militarizing police, justifying the murder of innocents abroad, justifying executions of Americans without trial, etc. - D and R couldn't agree more.

But this show is about moronic roommates who can't get along, not evil, avaricious fucks draining the blood of a nation for their own personal gain... right?

Re:Oh god, no.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hasn't the US Congress by folks with a black and white view for the past 225 years?

Fixed that for you. We are *STILL* arguing about many of the same things. It took a civil war to settle one of the issues.

Re:Oh god, no.

[puzzled_decoy]

...Coding is all about making and understanding rules. Good coding is about making rules that play nicely with other rules. I don't think I would hire you.

Re:Oh god, no.

[dgatwood]

The thing is coders are underrepresented as we have no reason to be there.

Actually, I would argue that science and technology committees should be populated almost entirely by people who understand science and technology, so to the extent that government is creating policy in those areas, there should be coders among the elected officials.

Re:Oh god, no.

[Anonymous Coward]

Every coder I've ever met has a black-and-white worldview

It's a binary worldview. The colour is irrelevant.

Re:Oh god, no.

[Anonymous Coward]

> Because I rail against obamacare which does nothing more than increase by 3x our insurance rates and millions are still not covered.

You realize this is entirely the fault of the Republican party, who botched the law entirely on purpose before they could accept it? Obama wanted universal healthcase, but noo, Republicans couldn't accept that, and that's where the whole "private insurance" thing comes from. Their entire strategy was making the law so bad that people would rally against it, and they semi-succeeded in doing so.

Re:Oh god, no.

[worf_mo]

Probably referring to the ESA engineer with a fashion problem.

Re:Oh god, no.

[Kyont]

That's right, there are after all only 10 kinds of people in this world (those who know binary and those who don't).

Re:Oh god, no.

[david_thornley]

Really? When we put Comcast people into positions like FCC head, that's bad, right? Then why is it good when we put scientists into all relevant scientific positions? Wouldn't a science and technology committee be better off with available expertise and lots of different viewpoints?

Re:Oh god, no.

[dgatwood]

Almost by definition, some of those scientists and technology exports would be industry scientists and technology experts, though some wouldn’t be. There’s your range of viewpoints. What I’m arguing is that the range of viewpoints on a science and technology committee need not include the anti-vaxxers, people who don’t believe in evolution, and people who truly think that computers work because of magic smoke. It should mostly or entirely consist of people with some science or technology background in the real world, because those folks are going to have the actual experience needed to understand how their decisions will affect things in practice.

Re:Oh god, no.

[Nutria]

Interesting article, and insightful quote:

Decency and decorum can be liberating. They inconvenience everyone -- a little -- but they also free us from worrying about who we might offend or why.

Uhhh, coders? If you look at their history

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this really what we consider coders? Getting a degree in CS and then becoming a lawyer doesn't count.

Will Hurd, a Republican who will represent Texas’ 23rd district. After earning his CS degree from the University of Texas A&M in 2000, Hurd worked for the CIA in counterterrorism and was a senior adviser with the cybersecurity firm FusionX.

Ted Lieu, a Democrat elected from California’s 33rd district. After earning a CS degree from Stanford, Lieu served in the Air Force and became a lawyer.

A CS degree is a pretty good base

[SuperKendall]

To get a CS degree, he would have had to do a fair degree of programming - but even better is that he understands concepts like O(N) difficulty... it's important to have an understanding that sometimes things are not very possible because of sheep computational needs.

Re:A CS degree is a pretty good base

[CannonballHead]

You really have to watch out for those sheep and their computational needs. They've been demanding more processing power for years now. :)

Re:A CS degree is a pretty good base

[david_thornley]

I'm really not sure why a legislature is better off with somebody who understands computational complexity in particular. A legislature is better off when it can get good information on various sources in general, but why computational complexity?

Only really useful in certain applications...

[KenHansen]

... Like when some bureaucrat tries to defend why they never backed up their email, despite federal law requires it, or when a state official tries to defend paying contractors when they can't successfully run end-to-end tests on their web application, despite the purchase agreement says they will... But honestly, is that ever gonna happen?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

And what else do they need to do?

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, so they can code. I guess they need to be able to drive if they're going to comment on roads or transportation policy, and I guess riding a bike would be useful. Oh and they'd better know how to farm, the government makes a lot of decisions involving farms, so running one for a while would be useful. And they should have military service if they're going to do anything -

Well, you get the point. Until the day when we consider "coding" (whatever that means) to be as essential as reading, writing, and arithmetic, it's just one of many non-essential abilities.

Coding, maybe. Science for sure.

[Primate Pete]

Really, I don't need my legislators to know how to program, because I don't know that programming skills are what's needed to produce good legislation and policy.

Basic literacy in science, and the honesty to make evidence-based decisions would be much higher on my list of essential skills for congressvermin.

Re:Coding, maybe. Science for sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

A logical, science based congress person would go nuts, because they would have this huge knowledge != action gap.

They would constantly be in the following cycle:
1) figure out what the actually sensible policy decision was,
2) ignore it and vote with the campaign money source, or with their clan on pain of metaphorical clubbing to death.

At least the dumb ones don't have to go through life comprehending the monumental irrationality and botchedness of their lowest-common-denominator "biz-dumb of the crowd" decisions.

Re:Coding, maybe. Science for sure.

[grouchomarxist]

I agree with you that science would be better than just being a coder, but I think coding could help if it contributes to a person's ability to think logically and consistently.

Re:Coding, maybe. Science for sure.

[Primate Pete]

Yeah, coding would be good knowledge for people on the hill, especially in the light of legislation about H-1 visas and the like. No disagreement.

That said, I think general science literacy would have greater overall impact and make a greater positive impact on my life and my confidence in the direction that things are going.

Dumb question?

[Anonymous Coward]

so what do congressional coders actually DO?!

Re:Dumb question?

[JeffOwl]

A congressional coder takes requirements from lobbyists and translates them into a design and set of instructions that aren't readable by the average person but can be executed by a large bureaucratic machine. Note that the machine is subject to frequent single event upsets and has an executive that is prone to write it's own instructions.

Coders?

[bigfinger76]

I think a few networking folks would be more valuable at present.

Oh god, no.

[Anonymous Coward]

Every coder I've ever met has a black-and-white worldview...

Well, they are taught to think in binary logic.

Actually...

[DougOtto]

If all of congress truly would code (blue) it could pave the way for some actual improvement.

Re:Actually...

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially if you replaced them all with "reds"! Right?

I don't just disagree on those things, but..

[s.petry]

“We need more people in parliament who can code, not because we need them to spend their time coding but because they have got to understand how powerful a weapon it is, so that they can make laws that require people to code to make machines behave in different ways.”

I key in particularly on their desire to "make people behave in different ways". I'm not a big fan of obvious social engineering, at least try to hide it.

"Really smart" people ...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a more general problem. People who are brilliant often fail to realize that brilliance is usually restricted to a narrow channel. That being brilliant in one field does not qualify you to comment on another field any more than the guy who changed the oil in your car. Scientists, engineers, doctors and various other "really smart" people make this mistake all the time.

Uh-oh

[PPH]

I can just see the Java and C# factions forming.

That will leave the task of writing legislation to the third guy. The one who codes in Malbolge.

Re:Uh-oh

[phantomfive]

I can just see the Java and C# factions forming.

It fascinates me that there are people who would prefer to build things in either language.

Re:Uh-oh

[lister king of smeg]

I can just see the Java and C# factions forming.

That will leave the task of writing legislation to the third guy. The one who codes in Malbolge.

Its government the would write laws in obfuscated Brainfuck just to screw with us.

No Thomas Massie?

[XxtraLarGe]

Thomas Massie is a tech guy with a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering & a master's in Mechanical Engineering from MIT, and founded SensAble. I'm sure he had to do quite a bit of coding in his time in school, and probably a bit while he was building his company as well.

Re:No Thomas Massie?

[Anonymous Coward]

Before he went to Congress, Thomas Massie also appeared as a contestant on an episode of Junkyard Wars.

Jared Polis

[michael_cain]

from Colorado founded an internet access and web hosting company while he was still in school. Started bluemountain.com and proflowers.com. Sold the three for upwards of a billion dollars. Might not be a hands-on tech guy, but certainly an early recognizer of the potential.

Wait for the Holy Wars to start

[plopez]

Knowing programmers the most inconsequential thing will cause a 'Holy War' to break out. Also there will be trawling, grammer nazi-ism, heavy sarcasm, and an in- ability to empathize.

Re:Wait for the Holy Wars to start

[blue9steel]

I hadn't thought of that. It will be like vi vs. emacs but with nukes! They have to be stopped now before it's too late for humanity!

Meh,...

[Anonymous Coward]

Carter was an Engineer.

Reagan was an Actor.

What was more effective?

Note I mean effective, not who's politics/personality you agree with.

List is incomplete

[sk999]

Bill Foster, Congressman from Illinois, can program in assembly language, among others.

http://www.cnet.com/news/the-t...

Re:List is incomplete

[XxtraLarGe]

Bill Foster, Congressman from Illinois, can program in assembly language, among others.

FTA:

What this actually means to tech policy remains unclear. Computer programming skills do not automatically lead to sound logic or wise positions on important issues. A quick read through Slashdot user comments easily demonstrates this.

Ouch!

Maybe it's you?

[s.petry]

I don't know your brother and can't speak for him. I also don't have the same beliefs, I think evolution is real and humans have caused massive problems on Earth including Global Warming. At the same time, I don't believe everything people claim about either of those things. I question what I'm told, and that gets me labelled as a 'conspiracy theorist'.

As one easy example, I read through the UN Agenda 21 reports which were out well before many people were talking about global warming. Since I know the information in Agenda 21 I have to ask how much of the debate is real and how much is fabricated to fit someone's agenda. At the same time, the "debate" seems to be an artificial means to start taxing some people for Carbon while other people (producing the same or more carbon) benefit from the tax and don't have to change their behavior.

The best lies contain a thread of truth.

A big part of the problem is that people on both sides believe anything they are told, as long as it matches their belief. Not an accusation, but a general observation is that people today can't seem to tell the difference between facts an opinion. Perhaps its always been that way and I'm just noticing as I get older.

Fencepost

[Anonymous Coward]

It should be "for 0 to 2", not "from one to three".

Bad news

[rs79]

They're COBOL programmers.

With apologies to Firesign Theater:

[Hartree]

"What are ya programmin' for, Timmy my boy?"

"Helps with my hallucinations. I get to see the world in its real black and white!"

(We're all coders on this bus.)

why is it a downside?

[Provocateur]

Is it because of the rule of threes?

GNU Congressman?

[tverbeek]

One of the new legislators-who've-written-code is Will HURD.

This just means ...

[Rambo Tribble]

... that now coders outnumber competent legislators in that institution.