SPUG: Legal Perl

[Bill Campbell]

On Tue, Aug 09, 2005, Andrew Sweger wrote:
>I've noticed that when I read legalese (contracts, licenses, etc.), I tend
>to render them in pseudocode in my head. I wonder if anyone has ever tried
>to use Perl (or any other programming language) to express a legal
>document. The ability to use variables and data structures to represent
>goods, services, entities, and events would give a way to logically codify
>(heh heh) an agreement. Nevermind the slough of problems with programs
>that are hard to implement or design documents that under specify the
>requirements, etc. I think it would be funny (ha ha) to write a contract
>this way, just for fun I guess. I wonder how a lawyer would respond if
>presented with one of these.

Unless I'm mistaken, boolean algebra was invented largely to
decipher the meaning of legal contracts.  Of course perl knows
what the meaning of ``is'' is.

Bill
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