|     ||   |
|     ||   | .
|     |+---+/|
| ////////__ |
|     |+---+\|
|     ||   | '
|     ||   |
[download]

The right way to use a screw is with a screw-driver right! Well, yes and no. The right way involves clearance drilling the outer peice of wood prior to screwing the two together so that the bearing surface of the screwhead comes to bear before the two pieces of wood are forced apart by the action of the screw threads. Alternatively you can use a screw with a threadless shank equal to or greater in length than the thickness of the outer piece.

However, in the days before portable drills where commonly available, carpenters working on remote locations or temporary structures (eg. shuttering) would drive the screw part way through the outer piece of wood (think 1/2 inch ply) with a hammer. This effectively clearance drilled the outer piece, and provided a firm hold for the screw upon which they could use their "lazy susan" screw-drivers to drive the screw home into the second piece of wood and finish the job. Quick clean and secure provided you don't drive the screw too far with the hammer. It takes expertise. They even made specially hardened screws designed for the job.

Similarly, you don't hit a screwdriver with a hammer right? When screwdrivers had wooden handles, chippy's often had screwdrivers with extended tangs (the bit that goes inside the handle) that passed all the way through the handle and protruded slightly above the end of the handle. This allowed them to strike the end without splitting the wooden handle. This is useful for loosening set or paint covered screws. It also allows the screwdriver to double as a bradawl(sp?). They could carry a seperate bradawl, but thats one more tool to carry (up and down ladders), to manipulate (when they need all three hands just to hold the 8'x4' they are fixing) and to loose.

As with all tools, there are generally 2 ways to use it. There's the safety-first, beginners way. Then there's the expert's "I know what I can get away with" way. The best perl example of this is described much better than I could in Paradigm Shift - Don't use strict.

"But if the guy's an expert, why does he have to ask the question? Well, he may have the expertise from another language, understand the pro's and con's but be lacking on the particular form of perl syntax. In REXX, compounding one variable with another (or a bareword in perl terms) to form a third is standard practice. If fact, using REXX's content-addressable arrays, is the only way to form any compound data structure. To create an array, you use syntax like:

file = 'myfile'
array = ''
do for index=1 by 1 while lines(file)
   array.index = linein(file)
   end

/* print the 5th line of the file */
say 'the fifth line was ' array.5
[download]

Someone used to this language, might, in the absence of a REXX interpreter, try to use Perl to get them out of a hole, and might try to use symrefs, but get bitten by the syntax differences. Sure, given the time to learn the language, perl has much better ways of dealing with this situation, but time isn't always on the programmers side.

So whilst this may be a contrived and rare example, it is concievable. Without context, they are indistinguishable from the raw beginner. Without context, they may seem to be in an indecent haste. If you've ever been an expert floundering outside your field, with enough expertise to make the suit but for the lack of a thread, you'll sympathise with my hypothetical rexxspert. (Who, by the way, isn't so hypothetical and isn't so very far away).

Do I advocate "Give'm the rope to hang themselves"? No. Do I try (but not always suceed) to avoid saying "You don't wanna be doing't that way!". Yes. At least until I get a feel for the who, why & when of a situation.

One man's opinion. Right or wrong is for each to make up their own mind. YMMV.