Read a clause, test it with varying inputs, watch the output and so on.
I've actually had fun working with my lawyer debugging/mine-sweeping contracts. We tech people use very similar techniques.
Seriously, go for it, you'll see :)
I've seen instances whereby a contract was signed between a colleague and his client, but the signature was between him and the signing agent, and not the company per se, so when the guy that contracted him suddenly left the company, the contract was declared null and void even though it was halfway through. He thought he signed with the company, but legally he only signed with the representative as laid out in the preliminary parties clause.
Lawyers are trained to spot those gotchas, much as developers can spot "off by one" errors in computer code instinctively.
That's absolutely true. The thought process is similar but we & they are trained differently, I really like your analogy.