Comment by kahawe | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kahawe | Hacker News Reader

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To be fair, I can see one difference, though, at least here in Euroland: you have all sorts of standards and regulations that buildings and contractors have to adhere to and especially on bigger changes or constructions you would get an independent expert to check whether your contractors and subcontractors did obey all the rules and when they frakked up somewhere along the way, they have to fix it, typically on their own bill. So it is not enough that you have a house standing there, material, construction and architecture are evaluated as well.

Contrast that to software, it is typically more than enough that you can click through the links and it basically looks like it "works" and if you delivered all that on time then it is already better than probably 95% of all software projects out there and in all but the most critical cases (money or human lives involved) absolutely nobody will check what exactly you programmed and how terrible the underlying software structures and architectures are. If anything, symptoms are being checked and there are requirements you have to meet when money or lives are involved. But that is it then.

We have regulations here in the US also (I had my house rebuilt 10 years ago and recently turned an outdoor deck into an indoor office). But our regulations are primarily safety-related. The wiring must be safe, the pipes plumbed so that drains drain and vents vent, and so on. They don't really inspect the quality of the craftsmanship. If your wall is not load-bearing, they care very little at all about how it is built. The tiles aligning? Your problem.

So, here anyway, it is also safety which triggers the regulations.

You're absolutely right - safety is key importance, style/'correctness' are secondary.

My dad is a contractor. He can literally build anything. I grew up with this, going on jobs with him, being in that whole space. I do software (but can build things too! :) and the one thing I've inherited from him is the 'do it right' conviction. Just like some of the tv shows where the hero goes in and says "omg, how could they do this?" or "this is all gonna have to be ripped out and re-done the right way because the wall is load bearing", that's my dad.

And for software more and more as the years go by, that's me. Yah, there is no software test we have to take - we just have conventions and patterns, none of which (I've seen) are governed at all, although I'm sure some are somewhere. Sometimes I wish this was the case. I've worked with bad coders and seen code that is unbelievable and part of me thinks this could all be avoided with regulation. But then, obviously, the other part (that wants to stay alive and put food on the table) knows that when this happens, the world changes and software will not be the 'easy' path it is now.

Like my dad, I have that dna in me to do the best job and the right work. But if there were regulation like in the building industry, a whole universe of different types would be out of a job. I don't see it happening in my life time even if AI starts building stuff.

But in software, the people smart enough to say "this is all gonna have to be ripped out and re-done the right way", are rarely in a position to not get their asses booted out the door.

It would help if you understood his reference, which I believe is the show Holmes on Homes. For example, Holmes the main character/contractor, had to rip off an entire roof (shingles, layering) of a flat-roof structure because it needed to have slight angles for the water to flow off. Otherwise any patching would not produce a leak free roof that would last for 20+ years like it should. I've worked on software projects where we went back in and completely re-worked the UI or re-wrote some data access layer stuff without a full rewrite. That would be a more analogous example.

Are you describing the show Holmes on Homes? As a software developer, I find myself getting better at "doing it right" almost 100% of the time.

In the US, the regulations often do little to protect construction clients, particularly individual homeowners. When contractors fail to observe the code, what recourse does the client have? Most often, the only thing available would be a lawsuit. Lawsuits are always expensive. This is especially true when they hinge on a technical question such as: "Did the defendant observe [insert building code citation] while installing the pipes that are now buried under a slab of concrete?" The costs make suing rather unattractive, particularly because here in the US, the loser does not pay the winner's litigation expenses.

I agree that savvy rogue contractors can skirt the law and build crappy, unsafe stuff (like came to light in Miami FL after hurricane....Hugo, I think...). But what regulations do well is make sure the honest guys know how to be safe. Whether they go to their conferences and learn best practices is optional, and they have to decide if they want to bear the expense.

If they ignorantly (not maliciously) wire the bathroom in an unsafe manner, however, they will fail inspection and be made to fix it properly. This is useful to the individual homeowners. In a way it's similar to the adage that "locks keep the honest people from breaking in." With both regulations and locks, they are less likely to stop the criminals.

Several states have consumer protection boards set up for just this sort of thing. I know because I filed a complaint in CT against a contractor who did faulty work.

My complaint along with a few others were compiled, leading to a hearing where his license was revoked. Additionally, the state had a fund set aside for people who lose money on shoddy work (up to 15K). We were one of the lucky ones, as he only cost us $3K (which we got back). Others lost 10-20K.

Bringing it around to the topic at hand, a code inspector for 'code' is an interesting idea. That said, I'm okay with devs/agencies being held accountable for their coding work -- as long as clients are likewise held accountable for paying on time, proper briefs, etc.

It's hard to regulate clear, timely and unambiguous communication.

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