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by ux2664787 hours ago |

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by pavel_lishin6 hours ago|

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I would stop writing code for money.

by ux2664786 hours ago|

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I understand that, though I wouldn't stop. I'd just go much slower and radically change my methodology. Failures in other engineering domains come with massive legal consequences, and they have for a very long time. In mesopotamia if a house collapsed and killed someone inside, the builder was put to death. People still built houses in the hundreds of thousands.

It really just introduces a legal burden to prove competence and work in good-faith, and nets immense power to throw out ridiculous deadlines. Your managers are legally responsible too, and if they push beyond what's reasonable you have just cause to bring them to court in a way that you currently don't. To re-emphasize, I don't think this is a better world, but it's not unlivable.

by pavel_lishin6 hours ago|

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Sure, but home builders today very rarely get put to death, and it takes a particular kind of intentional fuck-up to have a plumber, or a drywaller, or electrician placed in prison.

If I was personally liable for damages, and there was an insurance program or some sort - similar to how doctors & dentists practice - sure, I'd probably still write code, very carefully. But if there was a decent change of me spending the rest of my life in prison because something I wrote on a Friday at 4pm under some amount of stress? No thanks. I can re-train as a plumber, and stand knee-deep in shit all day.

by tialaramex6 hours ago|

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Well, one scenario would be that everybody who writes code would do so for money.

Take my friend who is a property lawyer. The firm she works for buys her insurance, because it would be insane to operate without insurance, but the only available insurance is personal insurance, it insures a specific person to do property law. So, although her day job is helping that $100Bn farm equipment company buy a $10M new factory from a $100Bn construction firm, at the weekend she is covered by that same insurance when she represents her friend buying a $500k cottage. AIUI this is a completely normal arrangement.

If that was the situation for programming, the company is going to buy your $100M exploit insurance because they need a programmer, but it's personal insurance so you could work on your Game jam game using the same insurance, and it'd be crazy to just "Go commando" if you don't have employment and thus insurance, in case somehow your "Galaga but also Blue Prince and somehow a visual novel" Game jam entry causes a $10M damages payment.

by bombcar5 hours ago|

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Or it becomes standardized to have exclusions - pilots for example often have extensive insurance that covers the company when they’re flying for hire, but covers nothing if puttering around in a Cessna on the weekend.

Insurance companies are very, very good at figuring out how to identify and price risk, once motivated to do so.

by tialaramex5 hours ago|

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Sure as you'd expect lawyers are better at cutting a good deal for themselves than other professions, but I wanted to cite an example where it does work out.

Also from what I've seen there are way too many GA accidents involving airline pilots for the insurers to eat that loss. They almost invariably have superior skills, but some of them more than compensate with risk taking.

by wahern3 hours ago|

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It's not about lawyers cutting a good deal for themselves. Liability issues get complicated along multiple dimensions when they involve licensed professionals, even when they're day-to-day working relationship is indistinguishable from any other employee. And lawyers, even more than doctors, are at the furthest extreme of this complication spectrum. Even were software engineering to become a mandatorily licensed profession like some other engineering disciplines, there's little reason to believe insurance products would mirror those in the legal profession. I seriously doubt we'd end up in a place where employers are common--let alone routinely--paying to cover liability for work outside the scope of employment.

by bombcar3 hours ago|

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It's because it's simpler to insure "everything real estate" or whatever than to try to cut out exclusions for (relatively) cheap properties.

But if they noticed that they were paying out more than expected on these $500k deals, the insurance would change quite quickly.

The same thing happened with GA insurance - there was an assumption that airline pilots would be safer but it didn't really turn out as expected, because a 747 has a heck of a lot more "keep you safe" doohickeys and doesn't fly low to the ground much.