Mythbusting Quiz

1. If I gave you a text file full of code for your web page, and that file was named “Code to paste.txt,” what would you do with it?
   a. paste it onto the page
   b. see its name and decide to turn it into a Javascript file and put it somewhere completely different

2. In the aforementioned text file, there is a line of code that literally says “CHANGE
_ THIS _ LINE _ TO _ WHATEVER _ THE _ FOLDER _ NAME _ IS” in capital letters. What would you do with that line?
   a. change it to whatever the folder name is
   b. put the code online having left that line exactly as written

3. Towards the bottom of the code in that same text file, there is a line that literally says “DO NOT ALTER ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE” in capital letters. Upon seeing that, would you
   a. leave the remaining code alone?
   b. delete everything that came after that line?

4. After doing all of the above incorrectly, you are troubled to find that the site does not work properly for some reason. Do you take three seconds to read over your own handiwork, or do you pepper a busy, hard-working, handsome young man with repeated e-mails  saying, “Your code still doesn’t work,” forcing him to repeatedly go to the web site, deduce where you’ve hidden the code like a leprechaun with a pot o’ gold, download the work by hand, and eventually have a life-threatening stroke?

This quiz is meant to illustrate a common misconception about web designers and IT nerds. Conventional wisdom holds that they are clever, obsessively technical, inventive, and operating on an IQ level normal people cannot even understand. In fact, they are borderline goddamn illiterate and incapable of cognitive activity. Most computer code actually began as a series of increasingly horrible misspellings on English essays.

Did you ever get so mad that you could see your pulse from inside your eyes?