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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.

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    Hic sunt dracones
    – Nick T
    Aug 7, 2011 at 20:22
  • @Bog: and? Wouldn't you want the first google entry to be this very page?
    – Andreas Bonini
    Aug 8, 2011 at 9:54
  • What grammar 'rule' does this sentence use? And is it equal with 'Here might be dragons?'
    – n611x007
    Nov 9, 2012 at 17:55
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    @naxa See ell.stackexchange.com/q/66/9566
    – maaartinus
    Aug 13, 2014 at 22:02

3 Answers 3

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"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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    I'd like to see some evidence that this text was "frequently" put on maps in the 1700s.
    – FumbleFingers
    Aug 7, 2011 at 17:09
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    @FumbleFingers. It's one of those things that "everyone knows", which turns out to be not true.If I remember correctly, it only ever appeared on one map. The answer is, however, correct, as this is the legend the question is referring to.
    – TRiG
    Aug 7, 2011 at 17:43
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    @Robusto - it isn't contentious that old maps used to be embellished, just not with these specific words.
    – Neil Coffey
    Aug 7, 2011 at 20:18
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    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_be_dragons
    – Ken Bloom
    Aug 7, 2011 at 20:46
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    This answer is correct in spirit but inaccurate according to wikipedia so -1 until it is fixed.
    – z7sg Ѫ
    Aug 7, 2011 at 21:24
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It's a jocular archaism. I wouldn't like to say it was ever really spoken in earnest, by a speaker who genuinely feared he was entering land so little known it might contain dragons.

It may have got a bit of extra currency from the tendency for old maps to be "embellished" with drawings. Unexplored areas (land, sea, or unknown) would often be decorated with serpents, and perhaps the legend Here be dragons.

Today it's just a jokey way of saying "There are/may be some really scary things here!". In OP's context, really difficult technical problems.

LATER: Having consulted Wikipedia on this one, I should say the only relevant ancient usage known is the Hunt-Lenox Globe (early 1500s), with the Latin HC SVNT DRACONES (hic sunt dracones, here are dragons) on the eastern coast of Asia.

The earliest reference I can find is this from 1892 claiming cartographers from the 1300s used the phrase, but this NGram strongly suggests the myth didn't become widespread until quite recently.

But it's a nice legend, so I'll keep my "perhaps" at the end of the second paragraph.

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“Here be dragons” is used to denote dangerous or unexplored territories (see on Wikipedia).

I assume that in your case, it means:

WARNING. If you're skiing out of bounds, you'll be on your own, you may encounter problems and it will be hard to come back.

where “out of bounds” means “not following patterns” and “come back” means “debug”.

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  • While you're explaining the phrases in your alternative version, you might also mention that by "skiing out of bounds", you mean "using relative source binding". But it's not a usage I've heard before (though I have heard people say "skiing off-piste" metaphorically).
    – FumbleFingers
    Aug 7, 2011 at 18:34

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