Judge Alsup Doesn't Listen to Atwood: Learns to Code
The latest news in the Oracle v Google courtroom drama is that developer Judge Alsup has been coding Java in his spare time - maybe Google should have hired him to write those bits of code that got them into this mess. The day that Jeff Atwood questioned the 'everyone should learn to code' movement, we find that the Java community's most famous judge has been writing his own rangeCheck code
According to Groklaw, Judge Alsup told Oracle's David Boies that:
Alsup tells Boies Oracle's only doing damages because they haven't won anything else and they're in a fix. "This is a fishing expedition."...Alsup says he's been writing code since this trial started. He's written rangeCheck code a "100 times". Incredulous Oracle claiming damages....
So it's looking like Oracle might have preferred if the judge has taken Atwood's advice. Given that Alsup is probably planning his next big Java project, do you feel more assured that he won't declare APIs to be copyrightable?
Comments
Otengi Miloskov replied on Wed, 2012/05/16 - 8:30pm
I found it great the judge knows to code. So he can do a good judment about our industry, he knows how it works. If he didnt know to code well it would be a mess of trial.
Atwood is kinda wrong, I hate too some noobs write code and make a mess and then we have to fix that mess but we are living in a time that everything is Computers and High-Tech so people should know just the basics so they have idea of what the geeks are talking about.
A basic course with Python or Ruby in schools just to learn the basics and people understand what is all about it would be great for the new generations.
Java Guy replied on Sat, 2012/05/19 - 6:50pm
That's not the spirit of what Atwood said at all. Judge Alsup is a better informed judge on this case because he is learning how to code. Atwood says: