Doctors no longer take the Hippocratic oath, they no longer pledge to do no harm. Its a historical oddity and not something that relates to modern medicine.
A motto for programmers: "Tuere usorem, data, veritatem"
51–60 of 75 posts
Re: A motto for programmers: "Tuere usorem, data, veritatem"
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
I didn't take "protect" the same way as you at all. Big tech is putting inside our heads that users shall be protected by removing control from them and that's detrimental. This gatekeeping is not protection, it's dystopia. Protect can be taken as in "Protect the user from bad decisions", or as in "Protect users' freedom" [1], which would completely go your way. I understood protect as "make the user your first prior…
Ok -- but then the word 'protect' is too ambiguous and overused, and we should find a better one.
You are certainly free to do so. This article isn't a mandate.
Re: A motto for programmers: "Tuere usorem, data, veritatem"
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
The people that operated looms in cotton mills used to say the same thing. A guard would get in the way, It slows me down when I try to do x. "I'm a skilled technician, just let me have access" They'd keep saying that until they lost a hand, arm, leg to the big swirling mass of metal.
Apples and oranges. Installing an encrypted chat app, a torrent client, or an open source OS stripped of spyware will not mangle my limbs, but big tech and governments are hard at work trying to make these a thing of the past. People on hn would do well to stop giving cover to such disastrous pretenses.
Relevant xkcd. https://xkcd.com/327/
Re: A motto for programmers: "Tuere usorem, data, veritatem"
#54Re: A motto for programmers: "Tuere usorem, data, veritatem"
#55This is horrible, horrible spaghetti Latin. "Tueor" in this context sounds very weird to me -- more "oversee" or "watch" than "protect." 'custos' is, to my ear, the idiomatic noun for "protector," and that noun sounds appropriate in this context. "defendo" (a verb meaning 'defend') would probably be more appropriate if we want to insist on using a verb. "Usor" is nonsense -- literal, actual nonsense. It isn't Latin.…
Veritas used to represent abstract truth is not out of place. Obviously it assumes a different connotation in a Christian context ("Veritas vos liberabit" from the gospel of John being the obvious example), but it's not the only usage. See examples here: https://latinitium.com/latin-dictionaries/?t=lsn50557 Data is the past participle of the verb "do". It doesn't necessarily imply that usage. I do agree that the cons…
So you are suggesting the motto actually should translate, "Protect the user, did, and the truth"?
Re: A motto for programmers: "Tuere usorem, data, veritatem"
#56Disgusting if you ask me. Protect the User? You are the User! Users aren't different than programmers! Right off the bat the God complex so rife in tech shines through! We must protect (this bunch of people, not us) with the power and elevated capabilities we (not they), are allowed to wield. Might as well just call them Lusers and be honest about where the sentiment is coming from. Paternalistic twaddle! You've instantly segregated the base of technology users into a hierarchy, abandoning the egalitarian ethos of the maker.
We make tools. Those tools should serve everyone equally. We are not some special technorati or caste. There is no special privilege inherent to the knowledge to drive the machine. We line up blocks one after another, feeding something in one end, to pop out the other. That's it. You aren't some Ubermensch, mandated to draw the line of who needs protection from what. You're a human being with a light board.
You want a motto? Make useful things. Gift them to the trustworthy. Teach your art. But remain vigilant against the pernicious. Evil will use our tools as surely as the good ones will.
P.S. databases are the root of all evil.
Re: A motto for programmers: "Tuere usorem, data, veritatem"
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Veritas used to represent abstract truth is not out of place. Obviously it assumes a different connotation in a Christian context ("Veritas vos liberabit" from the gospel of John being the obvious example), but it's not the only usage. See examples here: https://latinitium.com/latin-dictionaries/?t=lsn50557 Data is the past participle of the verb "do". It doesn't necessarily imply that usage. I do agree that the cons…
So you are suggesting the motto actually should translate, "Protect the user, did, and the truth"?
"do," pronounced with a long o, means "I give" in Latin. 'data' is the perfect-tense, passive participle -- "given" -- in the neuter gender, with plural number: literally "things given," but idiomatically "gifts."
Re: A motto for programmers: "Tuere usorem, data, veritatem"
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Veritas used to represent abstract truth is not out of place. Obviously it assumes a different connotation in a Christian context ("Veritas vos liberabit" from the gospel of John being the obvious example), but it's not the only usage. See examples here: https://latinitium.com/latin-dictionaries/?t=lsn50557 Data is the past participle of the verb "do". It doesn't necessarily imply that usage. I do agree that the cons…
So you are suggesting the motto actually should translate, "Protect the user, did, and the truth"?
But I prefer your version of the motto.
Re: A motto for programmers: "Tuere usorem, data, veritatem"
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Plus res gere
"Do more things"
'Res gestae' in Latin are aren't just 'things done.' The phrase is an idiom meaning "exploits" or "deeds" -- with the implication that there's something notable about them -- e.g. they're worth recording or remembering -- i.e. 'accomplishments.' So 'res gerere' to my ear means something closer to "accomplish" than "do things."
Re: A motto for programmers: "Tuere usorem, data, veritatem"
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
The people that operated looms in cotton mills used to say the same thing. A guard would get in the way, It slows me down when I try to do x. "I'm a skilled technician, just let me have access" They'd keep saying that until they lost a hand, arm, leg to the big swirling mass of metal.
Apples and oranges. Installing an encrypted chat app, a torrent client, or an open source OS stripped of spyware will not mangle my limbs, but big tech and governments are hard at work trying to make these a thing of the past. People on hn would do well to stop giving cover to such disastrous pretenses.
context:
> I do NOT want to be "protected".
to which you replied:
> Installing an encrypted chat app,
on a thread about developers making sure that user data is safe.
I want to install an app, I don't want to scout around and make a value judgement to see if its going to steal all my data. In the same way that victorians had to work out if the local baker is cutting cheap flour with chalk or worse[1].
we are "qualified" to make that value judgement, the vast majority of people outside of this forum are not. This means that the longer we let predatory spyware run our ecosystem (lets be honest, most of the "internet" is paid for by google, facebook and apple et al) the longer we ingrain in people to expect to be exploited.
The solution is not only opensource, because frankly thats even more user hostile. (oh you lost your entire history? lol you should have done x,y,z and not pressed the "make it awesome" button, as if you'd read the code you know its in. alpha) The solution is as "the people" to demand safe software. This won't happen because the current tech giants are the only reason why US GDP is growing.
The solution is tackling the tech behemoths. But that wont happen with current US system.