When I was young, I was asked to print some address labels, so I wrote a quick super-short BASIC program to parse a specific file, right now, today, and got those labels printed. Made all sorts of assumptions, but it didn't matter, because it was a static file, and nothing could ever change in it.
Three or four years later, I was having lunch with the guy I'd done that for when he got a phone call. Turns out they were using that program of mine to print labels monthly now, and one of the completely-safe assumptions I'd made years earlier had bitten them. Fortunately, he knew how to resolve it easily, but I learned a very important lesson that day.
Three or four years later, I was having lunch with the guy I'd done that for when he got a phone call. Turns out they were using that program of mine to print labels monthly now, and one of the completely-safe assumptions I'd made years earlier had bitten them. Fortunately, he knew how to resolve it easily, but I learned a very important lesson that day.