Boris Cherny explores how certain properties in programming, like asynchronous behavior and exceptions, propagate up call trees and force parent functions to account for their children's characteristics. He argues this 'contagion' reflects runtime behaviors that consumers should know about, but languages provide trap doors like error boundaries and promises to avoid it when needed.
An analysis of the English indefinite articles 'a' and 'an' reveals that the correct choice depends on spoken sound rather than written letter. Of 32,455 words examined, only 129 required exceptions to the vowel-sound rule, such as 'unicorn' (consonant sound despite vowel letter) and 'hour' (vowel sound despite consonant letter).