If you’re a developer, it’s a good idea to read blogs. OK, maybe not Perez Hilton or Talking Points Memo, but it’s a good idea to read blogs related to software development. Yesterday at work a bug was fixed that involved the dangers of using the HTP GET method for operations that are not safe or idempotent. Google had spidered the site, and made a bunch of chances to content by following links that made changes to the content on the server.

This is the kind of mistake that anyone can make (hopefully only once), but if the person who wrote that code regularly read the popular software development logs, they probably wouldn’t have made it at all. Last year there was a lengthy discussion of why using GET in an unsafe fashion is a very bad thing. It turns out that fixing the bug was no big deal and that the unintended changes could be reversed quickly, but why not let other people’s experience save you pain down the road? This is important especially if you work in a development shop that’s not necessarily open to new ideas (I have seen many such shops). Read some blogs, keep up with the state of your profession.