What this says is that strict is good ... good programming techniques are better.

1. Use meaningful (read: unmistakeable) variable names
2. Declare things in the smallest scope they can be used in.

I suspect that had you used #2, strict might've caught it for you.

------
We are the carpenters and bricklayers of the Information Age.

Don't go borrowing trouble. For programmers, this means Worry only about what you need to implement.