For example:

I still see people in 2011 writing blog posts and tutorials that promote setting the Java CLASSPATH at the OS environment level.

I see people writing C and C++ tutorials dated 2009 and newer and the first lines of code are void main().

These are examples, I am not looking for specific answers to the above questions, but to why the culture of accepting sub-par knowledge in the industry is so rampant.

I see people posting these same type of empirically wrong suggestions as answers on www.stackoverflow.com and they get lots of up votes and practically no down votes! The ones that get lots of down votes are usually from answering a question that wasn't asked because of lack of reading for comprehension skills, and not incorrect answers per se.

Is our industry that ignorant as a whole, I can understand the internet in general being lazy, apathetic and un-informed but our industry should be more on top of things like this and way more critical of people that are promoting bad habits and out-dated techniques and information.

If we are really an engineering discipline, why aren't people held to a higher standard as they are in other engineering disciplines?

I want to know why people accept bad advice, poor practices as the norm and are not more critical of their peers in the software industry.?