Pete C. wrote:

When someone proposing to do wiring has to ask what kind of cable to
use, the existence of building codes (and inspectors) don't seem
like such a bad thing.

It does to those of us who know what we're doing and live in areas
without codes and inspectors.

Alas, "Those of us who know what we're doing" often includes folks who only
think they know what they doing, as my uncles in the Fire Dept. who
investigated fires could tell you. Besides, if the definition of knowing
what you're doing is independent of building codes then someone who wired
his garage with patched lamp cord he found in a dumpster can claim he knows
what he is doing on the grounds that it hasn't burned down yet.