Ian, you are right, of course about the 'compensation culture'. But I don't think it is right to allow this to dictate good practice. In a similar way the over-reliance by unthinking companies on so called 'health and safety' policies has created huge inefficiencies in commerce. Mostly, the 'health and safety' rules that are being applied, only exist in the minds of petty officials who don't appear to be able to interpret the actual law correctly. So they make the rules up. (The same thing happened in banking with the 'Anti Money-Laundering Laws'. Banks have now 'Gold Plated' the laws with new rules that are there simply to protect themselves against the incompetence of their own staff.)
Common sense has served well for decades, accidents being inevitable.
I live in Brittany in France and it is refreshing that individuals are not pushed around by bureaucrats. The commonly held view of France is that it has an overblown bureaucracy. And so it has. But in the everyday world people are left to go about their lives without constant harassment by officialdom. Rules are there for guidance and people are expected to use common sense. It seems to work very well. And the compensation culture simply does not exist here. This is one reason why motor insurance premiums are so low, I suppose, together with the fact that vehicle theft is almost unheard of! Brittany has a very low crime rate, so I suppose we are spoiled!
I shall have to accept that programmers will continue to consider themselves subject to the stupidity of the system and live with it.
