Charles Petzold

In this perfect world of perfect people, the author of programming books stands alone in creating works that are riddled with errors, blunders, misstatements of fact, and code that will make your monitor explode.

What is the cause of this strange phenomenon?

Is it the enormous quantities of methamphetamine that must be consumed in writing a thousand-page book?

Is it the mind-numbing sexual favors that authors are obliged to perform in return for information from the Microsoft developers?

Or is it the senility that cripples the mind of every programmer above the age of 27?

Whatever the cause, errors in a book are embarassing and humiliating, and I feel that every reader should be allowed to come into my home and kick me in the butt at least once until I learn to be a perfect human being.

In the interim, the Applications = Code + Markup: A Guide to the Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation page now contains a link to an errata list. ("Errata" is the plural of "erratum" which is Latin for "stupid author.")

I'm listing the errors in the order I get them, and I'm including the dates of the emails, so if you check the list on October 25, 2006, and then again on January 15, 2007, you can skip everything dated earlier than October 25, 2006.

I'm also including the name of the particular dedicated — and sometimes just a bit obsessive-compulsive — reader who discovers the error. If you'd rather your name not appear, let me know.

If you've already sent me an email with an error that does not appear on this list, let me know. If you give me the original date of your email, I can probably find it. My email signal-to-noise ratio is well under 1% these days, so it's easy for stuff to get lost.

If you find new errors, send them to me at cp@charlespetzold.com. And if you want to include a XAML file with an animated 3D boot heading towards my head, feel free.