The judge who codes
October 20, 2017 2:46 PM   Subscribe

Profile by Sarah Jeong of U.S. District Court Judge for Northern California William Alsup, 72, the presiding judge in Oracle v. Google (about Android and Java APIs) and also will preside in Waymo v. Uber (previously.) Judge Alsup is a long-time ham radio operator and programs in BASIC.
posted by larrybob (26 comments total) 20 users marked this as a favorite
 
Looks like he is rocking QuickBASIC. Who will tell him that use of GOTO is considered harmful? Not me:

He keeps his courtroom significantly colder than the rest of the building; it’s rumored that the air conditioning is cranked up high to keep the jurors awake. If someone coughs in the gallery, Alsup pauses the trial to demand to know who did it. Once the cougher is identified, the judge produces a cough drop — he keeps them by the judge’s bench for such eventualities — and the cough drop of shame is passed down through the ranks of attorneys and into the gallery. If the cough persists, the cougher must exit the courtroom, as swiftly and as quietly as possible.
posted by thelonius at 3:10 PM on October 20, 2017 [4 favorites]


Who will tell him that use of GOTO is considered harmful? Not me:


I’ve known quite a few programmers who would have been happy to throw someone in jail for contempt for criticizing their code so I too would remain silent
posted by dis_integration at 3:13 PM on October 20, 2017 [2 favorites]


Hey Alsup, ya BASIC!

And I'm damn glad to hear it.
posted by Frayed Knot at 3:16 PM on October 20, 2017 [2 favorites]


If someone coughs in the gallery, Alsup pauses the trial to demand to know who did it. Once the cougher is identified, the judge produces a cough drop — he keeps them by the judge’s bench for such eventualities — and the cough drop of shame is passed down through the ranks of attorneys and into the gallery. If the cough persists, the cougher must exit the courtroom, as swiftly and as quietly as possible.

Lawyers must love this guy, wasting all this billable time on cheap ego tricks. He must make them a fortune.
posted by howfar at 3:28 PM on October 20, 2017 [12 favorites]


rumor has it that alsup is rewriting the us constitution as a restful api

i have no idea what that means * bites into fist *
posted by Foci for Analysis at 3:30 PM on October 20, 2017 [12 favorites]


Alsup has coded in relative isolation for decades, learning from books and compiling databases by hand. It’s a marked difference from the typical practices of the current generation of software developers, whose workflow and habits often tap into a larger community. He doesn’t Google for solutions, he doesn’t check StackExchange, and he doesn’t use preexisting libraries. Everything he’s written, he’s written from scratch.

This sounds both fun and extremely painful.
posted by HiddenInput at 3:38 PM on October 20, 2017 [4 favorites]


QuickBASIC, 5.25" floppies, printouts (!) of code, ham radio,... This is some nice, old-fashioned geekery. Also, notice how he says he "remmed out" those lines, not "commented" (because REM is how you comment stuff in BASIC).
posted by mhum at 3:44 PM on October 20, 2017 [11 favorites]


If you're a lawyer representing an Intellectual Property owner, a judge who deeply understands the principles of tech is a huge threat and is probably truly terrifying. IP owners mostly want the judges to blindly apply antiquated laws to modern tech because those judges don't understand the tech; a judge who codes is likely able to understand the nuances better, and can see through lofty legal claims about technology capabilities, uses, and history accordingly.

For example, I'm pretty confident this judge would understand why the claims of the guy who's been suing companies claiming that he invented email are merit-less; most judges, I wouldn't feel so good about on that issue, and that's one where the history and facts are pretty straight-forward. Getting a judge to comprehend the fundamental interconnected nature behind an API's syntax is even harder, so let's all be glad he's doing what he's doing.
posted by mystyk at 4:02 PM on October 20, 2017 [7 favorites]


It's so great having a judge with some competence and expertise in the area he's judging on. It made a huge difference in the Oracle v Google case when he could call bullshit on some of the trivial stuff Boies was claiming was profound for Oracle.

Honestly even a passing familiarity with some basic coding would be great. But Alsup is far beyond that; his shortwave radio program is badass. That map projection is pretty sophisticated. The layout and display are complex. It's good stuff.
posted by Nelson at 4:23 PM on October 20, 2017 [10 favorites]


Wow, he wrote that in qbasic? That seems more bloody-minded than badass...
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 4:46 PM on October 20, 2017


"I’ve known quite a few programmers who would have been happy to throw someone in jail for contempt for criticizing their code so I too would remain silent"

Criticizing the code is nothing; if you really want to unleash hell, criticize their choice in the ongoing war of spaces vs tabs...
posted by mystyk at 4:52 PM on October 20, 2017 [1 favorite]


QuickBASIC is a programming language with procedures and everything. No GOTO required.
posted by tss at 5:03 PM on October 20, 2017 [3 favorites]


For example, I'm pretty confident this judge would understand why the claims of the guy who's been suing companies claiming that he invented email are merit-less

A mental picture of Alsop leaning over the bench and snarling, 'kid, I wrote a mail client two years before you, I should be suing you'
posted by Merus at 5:05 PM on October 20, 2017 [5 favorites]


His then 2 year old son stapling his 5.25" floppies rendering them forever useless...
posted by AugustWest at 5:52 PM on October 20, 2017


I had a friend who programmed 3D wireframe games (and various DOS TSR utilities) in some BASIC or another back in high school. I never saw the appeal compared to other languages, but nonetheless it wasn't black magic or anything as long as your BASIC wasn't complete shit. Admittedly, I was not familiar with all the advanced constructs..I was mainly using it to automate the generation of war dialing lists at the time, so beyond simple IO and generating pseudorandom numbers I didn't have much need for advanced features.
posted by wierdo at 6:01 PM on October 20, 2017


Heck, nowadays you can compile QuickBASIC code into perfectly cromulent Mac/Win/Lin executables using QB64, no need to futz around with DosBox or similar virtual machines.
posted by genpfault at 8:02 PM on October 20, 2017


I never saw the appeal compared to other languages,

I think, for a certain kind of kid, old-school line-structured flavors of BASIC are more accessible than block-structured languages. I know that for my own son, Lua's insistence that every { has a }, every do has an end, etc. took him a while to get. The equivalent situation in primitive BASICs is just forgetting to GOTO a previous line, which will still let your program run (and do the wrong thing, which you can then think about).

(Yes, there are also things like Scratch and Blockly to get around the difficulties kids have with blocks, but after my kid saw me programming with text I think he got the impression that's what "real" programming was like).
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 8:19 PM on October 20, 2017 [2 favorites]


All the programmer nerds in here are on top of the cool (and outré) things in here, but from a law person perspective, a judge who encourages the press to report on which party challenges the selection of jurors with a technical background in a proceeding involving tech companies is pretty damn dreamy.
posted by Collaterly Sisters at 4:30 AM on October 21, 2017 [8 favorites]


Awesome post larrybob! Flagged as fantastic. I'm definitely sharing this profile with some other geeks and geeky communities I know. The profile is so well written, I am also going to share with my non-geek family members to gauge how much they understand the article.

I didn't really follow the case, but it is pretty clear from the article that Alsup made the right ruling. APIs, by design, are supposed to be functional, right?

I kept swinging back and forth on my opinion of the judge, while reading the article. On the one hand, all of his actions in court and in his rulings seemed awesome. (We leave at this time every day in respect to the jurors, I could write these 9 lines of code without ever seeing them, appellate court listen up: this is why I ruled this way. I don't expect you to be tech savvy enough to understand so here are the things you need to question if it comes up, etc.)

On the other hand... it's probably just a nitpick, and compared to other judges an incredibly minor nitpick... but his knowledge of some tech stuff needs to be updated. (What's github? It's cool to be called geek judge? I keep a computer from 2011 since my code won't compile otherwise?)

As I type all of that out, I am aware that is a very tiny nitpick. He is informed enough that he understands the new technology, but just doesn't use it.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 7:22 AM on October 21, 2017 [1 favorite]


Also. David Boies has a rather odd set of cases that he has represented. He did an interview (with Wired, I believe) about the Napster case and how everyone was "learning as they went along in the trial" (that's a paraphrase). Not really sure what to think about him.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 7:26 AM on October 21, 2017


I keep a computer from 2011 since my code won't compile otherwise?

Try being a musician. We end up with three or four.
posted by tspae at 9:02 AM on October 21, 2017 [2 favorites]


Alsup Propagator: run Judge Alsup's shortwave radio program in your browser via DosBox.
posted by Nelson at 9:49 AM on October 21, 2017 [5 favorites]


If I remember right, QBasic was the last time MS bundled a programming language with the OS. It was replaced with nothing. I think that's really important to note. Without gw-basic in dos I would never have met Eliza, and now we're happily married. Tell me how you feel about happily married.

MS if you're listening, of all the crappy stuff you've glued onto your OS since then, just throw in visual studio. Or something, anything. You should be able to program out of the box, or it's sort of broken to me.
posted by adept256 at 10:16 AM on October 21, 2017 [4 favorites]


He probably still has a notch maker on his desk to double side his 5 1/4" floppies.
posted by ShakeyJake at 2:09 AM on October 22, 2017


I never saw the appeal compared to other languages

On my TRS-80 Color Computer in the 80s, it was the only game in town until I learned 6809 assembly and ColorForth.
posted by Coventry at 9:22 AM on October 22, 2017


Also. David Boies has a rather odd set of cases that he has represented. He did an interview (with Wired, I believe) about the Napster case and how everyone was "learning as they went along in the trial" (that's a paraphrase). Not really sure what to think about him.

I think it's pretty common for star appellate attorneys to be parachuted into cases once they get to a certain point on the assumption that it's most important to get someone who has fluency in those courts and their particulars than someone who has expertise in the subject matter. He's one of the biggest names in the area, so his name gets thrown around a lot in matters where I'm guessing he's not doing that much actual work. Like, I'm not sure how much help he would be negotiating a divorce or dealing with Cuban sanctions, but he's the sort of guy you get to prove you're taking something very seriously.
posted by Copronymus at 11:31 AM on October 23, 2017


« Older Not your average felines   |   Funny Girl Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments