To break the rules, you must first know the rules

I had to put this down somewhere -

The previous post (with it's small comment on power and responsibility) reminded me of the zen koan where a master taught a pupil to always use structured code with proper design patterns. Then one day the pupil saw the master writing unstructured code. The pupil was furious and disillusioned. He asked his master - "Why do you force me to write structured code, when you yourself don't follow your own guidelines". To which the master replied "But I already know how to write structured code!", and the pupil was enlightened.

"To break the rules, you must first know the rules".

"This world is like any other. It has rules, some can be bent, others, broken."