Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!fluke!kurt
From: kurt@tc.fluke.COM (Kurt Guntheroth)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: computer (industry) follies
Message-ID: <5269@fluke.COM>
Date: 22 Sep 88 15:55:38 GMT
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An engineering undergrad I knew was doing some Fortran program for her intro
to engineering computing class on a Prime.  (Sorry, I can't remember partic-
ulars of the OS she was using.)  She was just cleaning up and commenting a
program due in a couple of hours.  Well, to make a long story short, it seem
that in the editor she was using, "del" meant delete-a-line, but "delete"
meant delete-a-file.  Her program disappeared and she panicked.  She tried
to get out of the editor.  Of course it politely asked her "really save
file", but it always does this when you've modified the file, so she said
"yes".

Needless to say, backups were unavailable to lowly undergrads.  She had to
type the thing in from an old buggy listing and re-debug it.  Pretty neat
human engineering, huh?