Recap of Rules As Code 2.0 Plenary

Rather than me repeating it here, you can check out my live tweet of the final session.

My Thoughts

I’m not sure if I’m surprised, or not, but there was almost no consensus on anything, except that we should experiment concretely, not debate abstractly, the tools should be explainable, and the products of the work should be publicly accessible and usable, not behind proprietary technologies or pay walls.

Honestly, at LEAST getting consensus on the need for explainability is a step in the right direction.

Some of the ideas were frustratingly bad. Like the idea that we should build an infrastructure for risk assessment and ongoing review of Rules as Code projects inside governments. No, we should not. It’s hard enough to do anything in government innovation without tying peoples’ hands behind their back to avoid imaginary boogey men. We don’t even have infrastructure for DOING rules as code, yet.

Others were frustrating, bad, but typical. Like the idea that there is some sort of risk that an encoded law is going to become a threat to legislative supremacy. Still no. Never has been, never will be.

So much of the conversation would be deeply different if we were just building the right tools, which we aren’t. I wanted to share that, and I did, with the 6 people sitting in the hallway.

Australian Rules as Code Conference Curse Strikes Again

This is my third attempt to attend a Rules as Code conference in Australia. I have never succeeded. This time it was foiled by Microsoft Teams, which refused to let me into the breakout room AND have a usable user interface at the same time. So I ended up in an ad-hoc “hallway” meeting.

Frustrating. But I’m glad the event happened, and I hope it keeps happening.