Hacker News Reader

I found it strange that that page doesn’t mention the example I immediately thought of after reading the first sentence: large dangerous machinery such as presses or lasers that require two hands to operate to prevent the case where the operator, in a hurry, still has one hand in the danger area when he presses the “do it” button with the other.

I'm going to add "poka-yoke" to the list of things that I make students commit to memory in my law school contract-drafting course; it'll be a synonym for "R.O.O.F" — Root Out Opportunities for [Foul]-ups.

(This is another example of how legal-contract drafters can learn from the software world, including concepts such as, for example, orthogonality; modularity; R.O.O.F.; D.R.Y. [Don't Repeat Yourself]; graceful failure; and the benefit of sometimes explaining why things are done the way they are, to help future readers understand.)

That's lovely, thank you!