<?xml version="1.0" encoding="windows-1252"?>
<node id="130064" title="Re (tilly) 4: Frivolous function names" created="2001-12-06 19:50:53" updated="2005-07-19 14:08:11">
<type id="11">
note</type>
<author id="26179">
tilly</author>
<data>
<field name="doctext">
I call that a really bad excuse.&lt;p&gt;

Flipping flags in internal code is an incredibly easy and common error to make.  There are some estimates suggesting that it is actually &lt;b&gt;more&lt;/b&gt; common than off-by-one errors - but not as often caught because it is much harder to see the error.  (According to legend I heard the very first Fortran compiler made this error - the flag determining whether to compile carefully or not was reversed.  No idea whether that is true.)&lt;p&gt;

As far as I am concerned the entire question of whether summon/get is OK is much less important than getting flags reversed.  As matters stand, I don't think people would accidentally call summon, and most of the time get is right.  But flipping flags is a basic error that you will make again and again...</field>
<field name="root_node">
129726</field>
<field name="parent_node">
129919</field>
</data>
</node>
