Re: [Fun With Perl] Idiom misuse (typos can getcha)

[merlyn@stonehenge.com (Randal L. Schwartz)]

>>>>> "Ronald" == Ronald J Kimball <rjk@linguist.dartmouth.edu> writes:

Ronald> One of my coworkers was in the process of learning Perl.  He
Ronald> needed a script that would loop over all his files, and
Ronald> perform some simple operations.  He found an example in one of
Ronald> his books (probably a camel or llama) that showed how to
Ronald> delete files, with a loop using unlink().

Ronald> That looked a lot like what he wanted to do, so he copied the
Ronald> code, and added in the bits he needed for what he was doing.

Ronald> Unfortunately, not being familiar with the unlink() function,
Ronald> he left that part of the code intact.

Why do people do this?  I see it in my class all day.  Why do people
*ever* put a statement in a program that they don't understand!?

I don't get it.  I mean, I sometimes put stuff in for which I have the
wrong mental model, and then I have to remove the induced bug.  But I
*never* add something because someone else happpened to type it into a
different program.

<sigh>

Isn't there any sort of license we can take away from people like this?

-- 
Name: Randal L. Schwartz / Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095
Keywords: Perl training, UNIX[tm] consulting, video production, skiing, flying
Email: <merlyn@stonehenge.com> Snail: (Call) PGP-Key: (finger merlyn@teleport.com)
Web: <A HREF="http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/">My Home Page!</A>
Quote: "I'm telling you, if I could have five lines in my .sig, I would!" -- me

==== Want to unsubscribe from this list? (Don't you love us anymore?)
==== Well, if you insist... Send mail with body "unsubscribe" to
==== fwp-request@technofile.org