Every once in a while, someone suggests writing laws like code. Bills are pull requests. You can easily see diffs from previous versions. It’s an appealing idea.

But sometimes I think about how political structures resemble code. Specifically, the U.S. Constitution reminds me of most of the code I write: it’s mostly happy path and there’s not a lot of error checking. They both assume good actors all around.

Just as Madison et al did not consider that a presidential candidate might receive material support from a foreign power and that large portions of the Congress might choose to turn a blind eye to it, I don’t really think about how a bad actor might use code I write.

Of course, I mostly write code for my own use. And the Constitution isn’t workable if it covers great detail. But a little more exception handling and testing is probably good for both of us.