Enlighten a total novice

[ebn808afxcut at email.com]

Before this topic came up on the list, I'd never heard of washing the flux off the circuit board, or even having separate flux from the solder.

1.  How do you keep the water from corroding the leads and components on the other side of the board?

2.  What's the advantage of cleaning the flux?  Is it a performance improvement or simply a cosmetic one?

Thanks in advance.

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