suggestions for VIN parsing

[Rick Johnson]

[Addendum #2]
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 WHO'S RESPONSIBLE FOR THE "SEMANTIC WARS"?
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I've always believed in the philosophy of:

  "Responsibility to the responsible". 
  
After reading that statement, a person might think that the
ultimate responsibility for bad code composition is the
programmer, but if you've come that conclusion, it's obvious
you only understand *superficially* what the statement means.
Later i will enlighten you on who is directly responsible
for bad code, but first, let's go on a slight tangent to gain
some context.

A celebrity by the name of "Philip Seymour Hoffman" was
recently in the news. For those of you who don't know, he
died of a illegal drug overdose. Personally i never knew
much of the guy until his name was all over news. And i
really don't care that he's dead or alive -- i'm quite
indifferent on the subject. But he provides us with a great
example of "responsibility to the responsible".

Before proceeding i must underscore that i personally feel
prohibition of any substances is counterproductive to free
societies. I don't use any substances myself, but if other
people enjoy drinking "Drain-O", who am *I* to stop them?
They are only hurting themselves.

    SO WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR "Hoffman's" DEATH?

Not long after the "celeb" croaked, the police and media
were pounding the war drums to find the "despicable" drug
dealer who killed Mr. Hoffman. The police even claimed to be
"casting a wide net" and that this drug dealer was going to
be "punished severely". Hmm, i wonder if they would have gone
to all that trouble for "Joe Crackhead"?

    FREAKING HYPOCRITES!

What did the dealer do? All he did was to provide a grown
man with a substance that the man wanted. Hoffman knew damn
good and well that cocaine and heroin were deadly, yet, he
made the conscience choice to ingest them -- so i argue he
got what he deserved!

As a "freedom fan-boy", i fully support my fellow citizens
right to harm themselves, but don't expect me to waste one
second of pity on a dead drug addict!

    SO YOU"RE SAYING THAT PROGRAMMERS ARE RESPONSIBLE?
    
No, i'm saying the opposite! While the sole blame for
willfully injecting toxins should be on the drug user and
not the dealer, the sole blame for bad code in the wild is
NOT the programmer, but the the language designer himself.

    WHAT? HOW DO YOU RESOLVE SUCH LOGIC?
        
Because drug-use harms *ONLY* those who choose to ingest the
drugs, whereas bad code harms *EVERYONE* in the coding
community -- and even those outside the community! 

    EVER HEARD OF M$?

I can write all the good code i want, but if you choose to
write bad code then your code is going to reduce the
"collective quality" of *all* code. And worse, if i'm forced
to maintain your spaghetti CRAP, i will suffer from your
mistakes.

    AND *I* SHOULD NOT HAVE TO SUFFER FOR *YOUR* MISTAKES!
    
You see, this is yet another example of how the
"degenerates" never suffer. They just keep pumping out
garbage that the rest of us are forced to eat. And why should
they stop?

Language designers should take a lesson from evolution.
Evolution does not suffer the weak nor does it have pity for
the stupid. Evolution is only concerned with the process of
"self perfection". It will cast off *any* weight that is
holding it down. It will cull *any* entity that does not
possess traits of the highest quality currently available.

    LANGUAGE DESIGNERS SHOULD NOT DEAL IN "PITY"

Instead of giving programmers tools for which to slow and
even destroy the collective evolution of code, language
designers should use programmers as pawns as part of a
"collective mind-hive" who will evolve the collective code
base along a strait and narrow path, a path that leads to
perfection, but that *never* allows attaining it!

    THAT COOKIE JAR SHOULD ALWAYS BE *JUUUUST* OUTSIDE ARMS LENGTH!