> I'd think people who operate in a realm where text becomes action executed by a machine designed wholly around faithful, reliable execution of text fed to it would come to learn the reality-defining power of rules.
Ah, but don't forget how often the code that gets written doesn't do exactly what the writer expected! Or is exploited by another party...
Indeed. I wouldn't say the law is for show; I would say the written law isn't the whole story. Reality is a three-edged sword: the law, the intent, and the implementation.
"For show," to me, implies you can ignore it and charge forward, bull-in-a-china-shop-style. That doesn't work in law or computers; naive invalid input gets rejected by the first-stage parser, and a court complaint completely ignorant of the law can get tossed by the clerk before it even sees a judge's desk. Rather, hacking is understanding and exploiting the consequences of, and nuances within, the rules.
Ah, but don't forget how often the code that gets written doesn't do exactly what the writer expected! Or is exploited by another party...