note
merlyn
The problem is that I consider it unethical to teach something without knowing it well enough not to introduce well-known bugs. It's just bad for the community at
large to propogate bad memes under the banner of "helping", because it doesn't
help, it hurts.
<p>It's the equivalent to spreading rumors that could harm someone else's reputation without first verifying them from an independent source, which I also consider to be unethical. Why do you think newspapers have such strict rules on "fact checking"?
<p>-- <a href="http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/">Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker</a></p>
<hr><b>update</b>: in response to
<blockquote><i>Update: I agree with merlyn in general, but I think a gentle suggestion that the author update the node with mention of the bugs and fixes would work just fine. Perhaps it would be even more helpful for a beginner to learn from someone else's common mistakes ? After all, this is a forum.
</i></blockquote>
I would have no problem if the original node had been posted "in quotes", as in "I'm thinking of writing a tutorial, can someone review the following draft before I publish it...". But that wasn't done. It was posted as a done deal, and thus pushed my hotbutton.
136482
136559