>http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/13/science/13essa.html
>
>Cue Charlton Heston to fall on his knees in front of the Statue of Liberty.

The Charlton Heston bit escapes me.

The article is interesting to me, and I've found, in this businees, that we depend on imitation on a daily basis.
Since I can remember the our "manuals" have basically relied on examples to "teach" us. My opinion is that they don't "teach" us a thing, but rather "show" us.
That would be OK but for one thing... it's near impossible, in many cases, to "show" us all the permutations and combinations that are useful so we invariably get into trouble when trying more complex variations of the samples. It would be far more useful if we were taught about the factors instaed of shown.

On the other hand, showing us pretty much ensures that we keep our usage along the lines of samples provided. That may be good in term of keeping their bug counts lower < s >.