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We were all novice programmers once. Back then, we would struggle for hours to get the simplest program to compile. But we were young and foolish and made a lot of stupid mistakes. Now we are professional programmers and we don't make dumb mistakes. We make smart ones (but we call them "professional errors").
In this chapter we present a number of programs designed to remind of your early programming mistakes, thus letting you relive experiences that you might rather forget.
A classic mathematical problem is to add the numbers 1 to 100. But this program seems come up with the wrong answer:
1 /************************************************
2 * A program to sum the numbers from 1 to 100 *
3 * using a brute force algorithm. *
4 ************************************************/
5 #include <iostream>
6
7 int main()
8 {
9 int sum; // The running sum
10 int count; // The current number
11
12 for (count = 1; count <= 100; ++count)
13 sum += count;
14
15 std::cout <<
16 "The sum of the numbers " <<
17 "between 1 and 100 is " <<
18 sum << '\n';
19 return (0);
20 }
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One electronic assembly company was having a problem with pilferage. Thousands of electronic parts were just disappearing. The company instituted a lot of new security measures, but the shortages kept continuing. Where could all the parts be going?
Finally a janitor solved the mystery. He was up in the rafters changing a light when he came across three birds' nests. The birds had taken parts from the factory floor and used them to make their nests. It was estimated that the nests were valued at $10,000 each.
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