If there's one thing that drives me FUCKING INSANE, it's bad code examples in programming books. It's especially bad when it's the FIRST example.
I swear I was put off C++ for life because of a bug in the first example of a C++ book, by Grady Booch in its 2nd edition!.
Today we can chalk up Writing CGI Applications with Perl into the same category. Note to fuckheads - you forgot the <html> tag.
Yeah, there's probably errata online somewhere, but by the time I think to look for it, I'm already pissed off and steaming mad, thinking that *I'm* the one who's doing something wrong.
Try Beginner Books
chromatic on 2004-06-30T22:44:21
I sometimes regret working for a publisher only because it would be ethically wrong for me to review potentially competing books. However, last night I read a book which not only used # characters to delimit comments in a C program (with a .cpp extension, no less), but it claimed that that's the proper comment marker for C programs.
No lie.
Shit happens
petdance on 2004-07-01T13:08:52
Sometimes things slip by editors. I sure wouldn't tag my friends and esteemed members of the community
Meltzer and
Michalski as
"fuckheads".
Calm down
KM on 2004-07-01T14:00:29
First of all, being called a "fuckhead" is pretty offensive, and uncalled for. Publishers don't always seem to publish what's given to them, and it isn't the fault of the author... especially for code I have found. Missing ; here, missing tag there. The erratta for WCAwP *is* online, and the motivated reader could find it in less time it takes them to call the authors "fuckheads".
What chromatic found in the other book is a real error, what you are whining about is an editorial mistake. Learn the difference and watch who you call names.
Re:Calm down
chromatic on 2004-07-01T15:49:17
It happens enough times in the other book (not yours!) that I'm willing to call releasing that book (not yours!) an editorial mistake. :)
Fuckhead #2
perlguy on 2004-07-04T03:10:32
Haahaa. Wow, I'd hate to have made a grammatical mistake!
Next time I promise to be perfect, I mean, what more would anyone expect.
Brent
