Civil liberties we are losing?

[Jeff Lebowski]

Originally Posted by Archaea

My point is that coders rarely see ...

Archaea, I am as geeky as they come and I agree with you about civil liberties.

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by FMCoug

If you include guys like Indy and Jay Santos and the scientiests, whose occupations usually tend to require a fair amount of programming, we may actually have as many "programmers" on here as lawyers! There is hope for CG yet.

Programmers of CougarGuard:
FMCoug
BigFatMeanie
Tex

Any others to add? I won't add Indy or Jay until they say they actually do programming in SAS, etc.

Indy Coug http://www.andesaservices.com/about.asp

I program in Pascal, which I know is Stone Age, but it seems to do the job and pay the bills. I also have done programming in APL and VBA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_(programming_language)

[BigFatMeanie]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

Indy Coug http://www.andesaservices.com/about.asp

I program in Pascal, which I know is Stone Age, but it seems to do the job and pay the bills. I also have done programming in APL and VBA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_(programming_language)

Sweet - did you use an APL keyboard?

By the way, your link was busted. I fixed it for you in the quote above.

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by BigFatMeanie

Sweet - did you use an APL keyboard?

By the way, your link was busted. I fixed it for you in the quote above.

No. I just learned by trial and error where the symbols were mapped to.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by Jeff Lebowski

Archaea, I am as geeky as they come and I agree with you about civil liberties.

But you are not a coder, and in fact, you work in the real world, dealing with water purification, regulations, and you're just brighting than others. You can see what you can't experience.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by BigFatMeanie

Dude, not being rude here - but you have no clue what it means to be a software developer.

"rarely see how bureaucrats operate"??
"living in cyberspace"??
"lived his entire life on a computer"???

Just exactly what do you think software developers do all day? Do you think they code just for the sake of coding? Software developers code to solve real-world problems. Guess what, software developers even write code for lawyers, the court system, the prison system, government, the CIA, the NSA, etc. How do they know what to write? Do you think they just sit in their cubicle all day and magically come up with stuff that can be used in the "real world" without understanding the real world?

You seem to think that being a lawyer somehow gives you more real-world knowledge about civil rights abuses under the Patriot act. So the contracts attorney that reviews business deals all day - he knows all about the street people, the cops, the government, the Patriot act, civil rights abuses, etc. huh? That's hogwash. Just as programming is specialized, so lawyering is specialized. Sure, there are some lawyers that have tons of real knowledge about government abuses - but that's not just because they are lawyers. There are many people from many different professions that have knowledge about government abuses.

I'm obviously not arguing that abuses can't or don't happen. What I'm arguing is that being a lawyer doesn't necessarily give one any special knowledge about abuses and thus it's unreasonable to hold your profession above some other profession when it comes to gaining "real world" knowledge about anything (be it government abuses or anything else). If someone wants to know about the U.S. Government's civil rights abuses, don't say "I can understand how you wouldn't know anything about this seeing as how you aren't a lawyer". There are tons of lawyers that don't have a clue about the U.S. Government's civil rights abuses. The bottom line is that your profession really has nothing to do with it and that instead of taking a jab at someone's profession, you should come up with specific examples from your real-world knowledge of the U.S. Government's civil rights abuses under the Patriot Act (which is what, I believe, the original poster initially asked for).

Now, all that being said, I would sit by you at a BYU game any day. Nothing personal. Peace bro.

Obviously my swipe was broad, but experience with coders is that their life experience tends to be narrower than those of business people and lawyers. Are some lawyers in a situation where they experience geekdom and are insulated from the real world? Obviously.

Are some coders also exposed to real world problems? Obviously. But given Tex's irretrenchable defense of partyline Republican politics, defense of torture, defense of all pronouncements of Church lleaders, he seems to fall within my paradigm for coders, living a world of cyberspace where reality and theory never meet. If I were similarly insulated I might feel as he does.

[non sequitur]

Originally Posted by FMCoug

If you include guys like Indy and Jay Santos and the scientiests, whose occupations usually tend to require a fair amount of programming, we may actually have as many "programmers" on here as lawyers! There is hope for CG yet.

Programmers of CougarGuard:
FMCoug
BigFatMeanie
Tex

Any others to add? I won't add Indy or Jay until they say they actually do programming in SAS, etc.

I came up as a programmer. Turbo C rocked!!!

[FMCoug]

Originally Posted by Archaea

Obviously my swipe was broad, but experience with coders is that their life experience tends to be narrower than those of business people and lawyers. Are some lawyers in a situation where they experience geekdom and are insulated from the real world? Obviously.

Are some coders also exposed to real world problems? Obviously. But given Tex's irretrenchable defense of partyline Republican politics, defense of torture, defense of all pronouncements of Church lleaders, he seems to fall within my paradigm for coders, living a world of cyberspace where reality and theory never meet. If I were similarly insulated I might feel as he does.

For the record, I agree with you on the Patriot Act Arch. But it has nothing to do with either one of our professions. You're up in the night on this one. Your description of coders MIGHT apply to the 5% or less of coders who write operating systems or hardware code. But the other 95% spend their time solving real world problems. In fact, as was discussed in another thread, this is why the whole Indian outsourcing thing will never COMPLETELY replace good US born and bred software developers. Because they don't get the practical part of it.

[Cali Coug]

Originally Posted by Tex

No, that's not what I said. (As usual, you distort.) If a convincing argument is to be made that Americans' rights (as a people) are being abridged, there needs to be evidence that Americans' rights (as a people) are ... well ... being abridged.

Were the Japanese internment camps limited to 10 people it would still have been wrong, but it would not have been a whole-scale disenfranchisement of an entire people.

By the way, Congrats on guest blogging for Rosanne Barr:

http://www.roseanneworld.com/blog/2007/06/impeach_1.php

You just repeated my characterization (while ironically denying it was accurate).

You are attempting to say that an abridgment must happen to the "American people" before it is a problem. I pointed out that it IS happening to American people. Your issue with my statement is that my use of "American people" doesn't mean "lots of Americans" or even "most Americans" (which you are arguing must occur before you are concerned).

[Tex]

Originally Posted by Archaea

Obviously my swipe was broad, but experience with coders is that their life experience tends to be narrower than those of business people and lawyers. Are some lawyers in a situation where they experience geekdom and are insulated from the real world? Obviously.

Your experience is obviously narrower than your swipe.

Originally Posted by Archaea

Are some coders also exposed to real world problems? Obviously. But given Tex's irretrenchable defense of partyline Republican politics, defense of torture, defense of all pronouncements of Church lleaders, he seems to fall within my paradigm for coders, living a world of cyberspace where reality and theory never meet. If I were similarly insulated I might feel as he does.

And somehow Arch gets away with claiming that I'm most condescending poster ever.

Originally Posted by Cali Coug

You just repeated my characterization (while ironically denying it was accurate).

You are attempting to say that an abridgment must happen to the "American people" before it is a problem. I pointed out that it IS happening to American people. Your issue with my statement is that my use of "American people" doesn't mean "lots of Americans" or even "most Americans" (which you are arguing must occur before you are concerned).

You didn't point out anything of the sort. We're all talking in hypotheticals.