Replies to post #17500 on The Question and Answer Board (IHUB)

[AKvetch]

Anybody know what this error message means?

"Your program has performed an illegal operation. Consult a lawyer."

AK

[PMS Witch]

I’m still playing with my dictionary file and word manipulation programs. . .

From time to time, somebody posts that “stewardesses” is the longest word that can be typed using only the left hand. I checked, and found a few others the same length, but none longer.

aftereffects
desegregated
desegregates
reverberated
reverberates
stewardesses
watercresses

I wondered about the longest word that can be typed with the right hand and found a single word, “polyphony” as the longest.

Continuing, I tried using only the top row of keys. This gave me four words.

perpetuity
proprietor
repertoire
typewriter

The home row of keys gave me only two.

alfalfas
galahads

These two words are flagged by Word97 as misspelled but they pass I-Hub's spelling checker.

The bottom row doesn’t contain any vowels.

Cheers, PW.

P.S. In Canada, where I live, we celebrate Thanksgiving this Sunday, (and have Monday off to recover) so I've some spare time too kill. I also celebrate the U.S. Thanksgiving too, because I really like turkey.

[PMS Witch]

...but in a larger shop, comments are important and helpful to the next person looking at your code...

I once worked with a woman who deliberately wrote opaque code and misleading comments as a form of job security. Nobody was able to decipher how her programs worked. She had the boss wrapped around her little finger. She convinced him that everyone who touched her code was an idiot and would make a mess.

The shame was, she was quite bright and didn't need to use these tactics.

When the company was purchased by a much larger competitor, people from the acquiring company sent their systems people to examine what they would keep and what they would discard. When her work was reviewed, she joined the unemployed queue while the others in her department were absorbed into an expanded IT centre.

Sometimes the Gods play fair!

Cheers, PW.