Following The Manuals
When I first got interested in computers I was entirely self-taught. I'd read the manuals in the terminal room at CSUN and try to make stuff work. One day I was fiddling with FORTRAN and trying to write to a file (this was on a CDC 3300 running KRONOS, as I recall). I set up my deck of cards following the manual and ran the program. It seemed ok, so I ran it again -- and it bombed. After much head scratching, I finally went to one of the head gurus who'd helped me before. He started reading through the deck. After about three cards his jaw dropped and he turned white. "My God!," he said, "You've opened a file on the master disk! It's 99% full! [the disk, that is]" I told him I'd just done what the manuals said. The next day, all the manuals were gone from the terminal room. I kid you not. (-: