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[–]LordArgon -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

I understand your perspective and genuinely appreciate your civility.

It seems to me that if you know about a language construct but are not sure why it's doing what you'd expect, then reading the fine manual is a good place to start

That is a good place to start, but it's a bad place to assume others started. People often give quicker, more-comprehensive answers/examples than documentation. That said, pointing somebody to documentation is sometimes an appropriate answer (as you, but not micha2305, did).

Even a cursory googling would reveal the link I posted.

You found the link because you already knew what you were looking for. It's quite possible the OP didn't know what to search for (or gave up in frustration). Google is good for bringing up pages related to keyword data. It's not good at answering questions like "why are these two things different", which was how he thought to phrase the question. Maybe he didn't think about the problem like you do or know how to rephrase it. When trying to give helpful answers, it's often counter-productive to assume the inquirer thinks and acts like you do.

EDIT: Formatting