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Every novice programmer starts out learning about simple expressions and how to print them. But the following program is a little too simple. What's the problem?
1 /************************************************
2 * A program to answer the question of a five *
3 * year old: *
4 * "What is 2 + 2?" *
5 ************************************************/
6 #include <iostream>
7
8 int main()
9 {
10 int result; // Result of the addition
11
12 result = 2+2;
13 std::cout << "The answer is " << result;
14 return (0);
15 }
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One clever programmer came up with a way of robbing a bank. He stole about 1/2¢ from every depositor. When banks compound interest the result is not always a whole number. For example, the interest might 3.2¢ or 8.6¢. Banks routinely round this number, so 3.2 becomes 3 and 8.6 becomes 9. The result is that about half the time, the number is rounded up and the other half it's rounded down. So everything comes out roughly even.
A crooked programmer changed the algorithm to always truncate. Thus 3.2 becomes 3 and 8.6 becomes 8. This leaves a lot of fractions of cents floating around. The programmer collected these and added them to the last name in the list of accounts. Since he had opened an account in the name of ZZYMOCK, that account was his.
The thief was very clever. He stole less than one cent from everyone. And no one noticed. After all, how many people check their interest down to the last decimal point? How many people even check their interest at all?
But the fellow was caught. Seems that ZZYSKI opened up an account. Now his name was last on the list. And when he got his first statement he was rather surprised to learn that he was getting $38,238.83 in interest on a $200 account.
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