[Tutor] Sum of Scores

[Terry Carroll]

On Thu, 26 Jul 2007, Tiger12506 wrote:

> > But you can call the random functions in your code as often as you want
> > safely.
> >> Perhaps this is a question for the 'language lawyers'?
> >>
> > Not sure what this means.
> 
> I believe it means 'those who know the language inside and out' like a 
> lawyer must know the law.

A little more subtle.  The Jargon File explains it best:

   language lawyer: n.  A person, usually an experienced or senior
   software engineer, who is intimately familiar with many or most of the
   numerous restrictions and features (both useful and esoteric)  
   applicable to one or more computer programming languages. A language
   lawyer is distinguished by the ability to show you the five sentences
   scattered through a 200-plus-page manual that together imply the answer
   to your question "if only you had thought to look there."

http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/L/language-lawyer.html

So it's more about the ability to know and correctly interpret the docs,
especially in the area of how the different provisions interact.  If
you've ever seen an attorney work through the question "does our contract
let us do FOO?" -- well, I'd feel sorry for you if so, because that's time
you're never getting back, but you'd see the similarity.

Now excuse me, I have a contract to go look through.