Patterns in Confusing Explanations
Pattern 12 was something I learned early (fortunately) in my software development journey. I think the article I was reading was something to do with how to properly partition your disk (it was about 15 years ago, so fuzzy details, but I remember it was a topic that directly impacted disk storage). Anyway, it listed a series of steps that he followed, which I had printed out and began following (again, 15 years ago).<p>The paragraph following his series of steps then said, "I soon realized that this was not what I wanted, and in fact, it made for a cleaned out disk. No good. So next.."<p>And yes, it wiped my disk clean too. The light-hearted way in which he wrote this infuriated me. I just wiped clean my computer because of his article. Granted, I should not have blindly followed the article, and it was a good lesson that has prevented me from ever making the same mistake again. But the way he listed the steps in a very procedural, "this should be followed" format; it felt very deceptive, and the result was irreversible.