idioms - What is the meaning of the phrase 'Here be dragons'?


What does here be dragons mean in the example below?



WARNING Here be dragons. Relative source binding can not only encourage bad application practices, such as binding to things defined in codebehind instead of following a pattern such as ViewModel, but also be hard to debug, especially when you get into changes to DataContext set by external consumers of your user control.




Answer



"Here be Dragons" was a phrase frequently used in the 1700s and earlier by cartographers (map makers) on faraway, uncharted corners of the map. It was meant to warn people away from dangerous areas where sea monsters were believed to exist. It's now used metaphorically to warn people away from unexplored areas or untried actions. There are no actual dragons, but it is still dangerous.


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