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  • Hmmm, that's a tough one. It doesn't translate well to classic car/building/factory analogies..... Commented Mar 29, 2011 at 16:09
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    Imagine having references to the Republican and the Democrat party in US common law, and then renaming one of the parties while adding a third ... many of the laws will have to be rewritten. Commented Mar 29, 2011 at 16:09
  • How about the analogy of: copy-pasting code (insecure, bad structured, etc.) that you don't understand from wikis, forums, etc. is like opening e-mail attachments (viruses, spywares, spams, etc.) from third-parties? Commented Mar 29, 2011 at 16:34
  • @faif: Copy-pasted code isn't necessarily garbage code. It could be good code the guy in the office next to you wrote. The problem with copy-pasted code is that it very quickly becomes an unmanageable maintenance/debugging nightmare. Commented Mar 29, 2011 at 16:36
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    @faif: then zap the parenthesized section Commented Mar 29, 2011 at 16:50