Why do instructions seem to miss the step before the first? I will call this missing step “Missing Step Zero”, if you will.

Maybe I am just bad at Googling. Maybe I have a problem with directions. Or, maybe I have a non-standard setup, but the missing step zero has plagued me several times in my life.

Now, I am too forgetful to remember all the Missing Step Zeros I had to hunt down but her are two:

“How do I write a file in Oracle’s PL/SQL?”

• http://www.devshed.com/c/a/Oracle/Writing-to-Text-Files-in-Oracle-PLSQL/
• http://oreilly.com/catalog/oraclebip/chapter/ch06.html
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/27562/oracle-write-to-file

But none of them work!

After hours of investigation I found the missing step zero:

I wish I read *this* first

“How do I turn on WCF logging?”

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms730064.aspx

And there are hosts of other sites with various logging options. But none of them work!

After a few days, and help from a friend, I found the sneaky step zero:

Seriously? How about generating an error when an app.config file is not going to be used?