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mormegil

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mormegil ,
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Beware the DWIM!

In one notorious incident, Warren added a DWIM feature to the command interpreter used at Xerox PARC. One day another hacker there typed delete *$ to free up some disk space. (The editor there named backup files by appending $ to the original file name, so he was trying to delete any backup files left over from old editing sessions.) It happened that there weren't any editor backup files, so DWIM helpfully reported *$ not found, assuming you meant 'delete *'. It then started to delete all the files on the disk!

http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/D/DWIM.html

mormegil ,
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It’s not as easy as it sounds, sometimes the screens are all wrong!! xkcd.com/722/

mormegil ,
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In a bank we work for, there is a mandatory security training for employees, mandated by the parent supranational. The bank tried to correct the mistakes in the training or at least make the training optional, as the bank provides its own, more correct program. Rejected by the mother company, mandatory training is mandatory, even if it is wrong.

mormegil ,
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Well… unless you measure the number of [milli]seconds using something like time_t, which lies because of leap seconds. I.e. even such a seemingly simple interface, in fact, includes a calendar.

mormegil ,
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Syntax error: unmatched thing in thing from std::nonstd::__map<_Cyrillic, _$$$dollars>const basic_string< epic_mystery,mongoose_traits<char>, __default_alloc_<casual_Fridays = maybe>>

(from James Mickens’ The Night Watch, highly recommended with his other essays: mickens.seas.harvard.edu/wisdom-james-mickens)

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