My first “big” coding project is called Sprout. It’s an app that tracks children’s growth rate (weight and height) over time. Here’s a quick summary of my user stories and acceptance criteria—

Before dabbling in the coding arts, I was a Code Head (not the technology kind, the Uniform Commercial Code kind). It’s really interesting to me how law applies to new technology. In this article, I am going to discuss the effectiveness of using software license agreements in resolving virtual property right disputes that arise in massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG).

Enforceability of Shrinkwrap and Clickwrap License Agreements: Shrinkwrap licenses are terms and conditions found inside software boxes. Consumers can only read and accept the terms after opening the product. Clickwrap, on the other had, is usually found on the internet where consumers click “agree” before they can download a particular software. If the user refuses to click “agree,” he can no longer use or purchase the product or service.

Courts considered shrinkwrap and clickwrap licenses accompanying the sale of products as ordinary contracts subject to Uniform Commercial Code. ProCD, Inc. v. Zeidenberg, 86 F. 3d 1447. Given their unilateral nature, courts have found these licenses to be unenforceable contracts of adhesion. Step-Saver Data System v. Wyse Technology, 939 F. 2d 91. In Step-Saver Data Systems v. Wyse Technology, the court relied on UCC § 2-207 and § 2-209 in refusing to uphold the disclaimer of all express and implied warranties contained in the box-top license. The court reasoned that the box-top license was not the final and complete expression of the parties’ agreement because Step-Saver ordered the Advanced Multilink computer program over the phone. The telephone order acted as the final and complete expression of the parties’ agreement; therefore, conditions added subsequent the telephone order in the box-top license are material alterations of the contract.Step-Saver Data System v. Wyse Technology, 939 F. 2d 91. Because UCC § 2-209 requires that both parties must intend to adopt the additional terms, the shrinkwrap license was unenforceable.

I started dabbling into the coding arts a few months ago (hence Code Gazer). I read Chris Pine’s Learn to Program. This is my attempt to elaborate on Pine’s Die Example to further understand the relationships between objects, classes, variables and methods.

Pine Example: Create a die that gives you a random number when you roll it.

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class Die         #create a class
  def roll        #create method
    1 + rand(6)     #method logic
  end
end

Everything is an object. Class is an object that allows us to make new classes of objects and defines how those classes behave. A method is the behavior of those objects. A die is not a basic object in Ruby (i.e. range, integers, strings, arrays and hashes) so in this example, we need to create a new object. We can do that by creating a new class. To create a new class, we use a construct called class (which defines a class’s behavior) and a class name, Die. The first letter of a class name is always capitalized.