In high school I had to write a long apology essay in part because my computer teacher testified to the principal that the Windows command line is "a high-security area of the computer that students have no business accessing."

I tried to explain that she was wrong, but you can guess how well that went.

While we're sharing anecdotes...

In high school, I was doing a programming course. I was working on my assignment in the library, when the librarian came in and started yelling at me for hacking. I explained that it was course-work, and she said "Oh, alright then.".

One week later, she came in yelling at me "I've already warned you once about this!", and kicked me out of the library.

* confused-look

> Although each of these counts bordered on the preposterous, Ortiz and Heymann clearly reckoned that at least one or two would stick during the jury-room bargaining process. ... Prosecutors were also revealed to have offered a reduced sentence, but only if Swartz pleaded guilty to every charge

This is what really hit home for me. They weren't just filing court documents in a legal strategy to get a conviction. They were telling a man to his face that they expected him to plead guilty to patently insane trumped-up charges.

For me, external documentation is the absolute worst scenario. It takes me at least 4 times longer to read through and understand code without comments explaining in English what's going on. Here's a real-life example:

  // Toggle between Dropdown and Text
  if(_protected.fields[field].fieldType() === "Dropdown") {
  _protected.fields[field].set("fieldType", "Text");
    } else {
  _protected.fields[field].set("fieldType", "Dropdown");
  }

I think it would take me about 4 seconds to figure out that this code "toggles between Dropdown and Text" if the comment weren't there. Since the comment is there, I can just glance at the code and understand immediately what it does.

Rather have code that looks like this:

  toggleDropdown(field) {
   if ...
  }
  
  toggleDropdown(_protected.fields[field]);

Also the external documentation wouldn't have anything like this in it. It would be pretty much:

  UI Code is in XXX. It communicates with ZZZ using YYY. 
  Fields in the UI are changed between text and dropdowns 
  depending on the value in the database that comes 
  from ZZZ. etc.

Unless the shared object file also includes an override for the function that expands environment variables to lie about the true value of LD_PRELOAD.

I think it has more to do with bureaucracy than with fear of litigation. In an ecosystem as complicated as medical care, lots of policies and procedures accumulate over time and there's nobody with the authority to cut through the bullshit and redesign the system.

I imagine that these policies come about not from lawyers' memos, but from the physicians themselves.

The screenshot at the bottom is one of the coolest things I've ever seen.

The "Dear Sir" and "Mr." built into the form letter on page 7 caught my eye. That's not something you see anymore.

The difference isn't just replacing {} with <>. Notice that the tag name is only specified once. The end tag is only an end } not a </tag>. This is more satisfying to programmers because the SGML style allows mixups like <a><b>text</a></b>.

I'm not sure if expecting the programmer to know all HTML tags but not how they are used is the right way to go :P

Either you say "ok, i want to get rid of HTML and make it really easy to build a website" or not. This approach is neither, in my opinion.

In my opinion, that's a problem of most of those "fancy" markup languages. Why should i bother using this (or haml for that matter), if it only adds another layer of complexity and yet another "language" to learn (for me and far more important for every other person that may join a project in the future)? It may look prettier but it introduces overhead and potential other problems. Is it worth it? For me, it's not.

`pass` is uncracked?

> Books need to be written, edited, typeset, 'printed' / 'put into ebook format', distributed, etc.

The author writes the book. Typesetting and "putting into ebook format" are a copy-and-paste affair, taking at most a day. Pirated books don't need to be printed or distributed.

>Typesetting and "putting into ebook format" are a copy-and-paste affair, taking at most a day.

Well, if you want it done poorly, sure. (And of course, you rightly avoided impugning the need for a good editor.)

>Typesetting and "putting into ebook format" are a copy-and-paste affair, taking at most a day. I suggest you try doing it for someone else's work. Try signing up to be an editor at one of the story-writing sites. It's not a copy-and-paste affair. And doing it well requires non-trivial amount of attention and time.

That time still isn't free.

So, they pay once for that time and effort. That doesn't mean that they should be paid in perpetuity! Imagine a cobbler who fixes my shoes. Should I pay them for every step I take? Of course not, I pay them once for the work they have done.

That's really a terrible analogy.

Why so?

Because continuing that analogy, you should pay once for that time and effort on the part of the publisher as well. It kind of falls apart, and I'm pretty sure it's not the point you were trying to make.

I'm a little confused. Why should I pay for a product more than once? My analogy of shoes is that it's a service you purchase. If I need to purchase the service again, then I will... pay a second time :-) But if I purchase a college textbook, unless there is some massively important content update, then I can't see why I need to purchase it more than once!

To be clear, if more than one person buys the book, then the time and effort will have been repaid by more than one person. The analogy I provided doesn't actually fall down - if several people go to the cobbler to have their shoes repaired, more the good for the cobbler!

So yes, I only would pay once for the time and effort of the publisher for that book. I might buy more books from the publisher, but then that is different content.

I'm not following your reasoning as to why I or anyone else should pay the publisher more than once for the same product. Could you clarify?

>I'm not following your reasoning as to why I or anyone else should pay the publisher more than once for the same product. Could you clarify?

Ahh, I kind of misunderstood. I got on some odd tangent about software in general (i've been arguing a piracy thread on another board recently and got the two conflated in my mind) and forgot that this was a thread about textbook shenaniganery.

Still, I rather dislike physical analogies to digital things as they're usually terribly flawed in one way or another. There is at least an argument (if not a very good or reasonable one) on the whole textbook licensing thing. There is no reasonable argument in any universe real or imagined where cobbler would charge you per step. It's reductio ad absurdum.

Of course! Sorry, I might have been unclear. I'm talking about the service of repairing my shoes. Not for every step I took in the shoes... that would indeed be absurd :-)

Edit: OMG, I really did write "every step I take"! That was a total brain fart, and not in any way what I meant to say. I have no idea why I wrote that :( A little embarassed now!