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ProgrammersThe project manager said: "Let's catch a cab and in ten minutes we'll reach our destination."
The computer programmer said: "We have here the driver's guide. I can easily replace the flat tire and continue our drive."
The computer operator said: "First of all, let's turn off the engine and turn it on again. Maybe it will fix the problem."
Suddenly a Microsoft software engineer passed by and said: "Try to close all windows, get off the car, and then get in and try again."
A Software Engineer, a Hardware Engineer and a Departmental Manager were on their way to a meeting. They were driving down a steep mountain road when suddenly the brakes on their car failed. The car careened almost out of control down the road, bouncing off the crash barriers, until it miraculously ground to a halt scraping along the mountainside. The car's occupants, shaken but unhurt, now had a problem: they were stuck halfway down a mountain in a car with no brakes. What were they to do?
"I know," said the Departmental Manager, "Let's have a meeting, propose a Vision, formulate a Mission Statement, define some Goals, and by a process of Continuous Improvement find a solution to the Critical Problems, and we can be on our way."
"No, no," said the Hardware Engineer, "That will take far too long, and besides, that method has never worked before. I've got my Swiss Army knife with me, and in no time at all I can strip down the car's braking system, isolate the fault, fix it, and we can be on our way."
"Well," said the Software Engineer, "Before we do anything, I think we should push the car back up the road and see if it happens again."
Why do programmers always get Christmas and Halloween mixed up?
Because DEC 25 = OCT 31
How do you keep a programmer in the shower all day?
Give him a bottle of shampoo which says "lather, rinse, repeat."
A system programmer came home from work almost at dawn and told his wife
enthusiastically: "Tonight I have installed a new release of MVS/ESA
together with VM/CMS and CICS/VS".
"G.O.O.D" answered his wife.
The Programmers' Cheer
Shift to the left, shift to the right!
Pop up, push down, byte, byte, byte!
- "Have you heard about the object-oriennted way to become wealthy?"
- "No..."
- "Inheritance."
If you can touch it and you can see it, it's REAL.
If you can touch it but you can't see it, it's TRANSPARENT.
If you can't touch it but you can see it, it's VIRTUAL.
If you can't touch it and you can't see it, it's GONE.
If you can pick it up, it's a PC.
If you can't pick it up but you can push it over, it's a minicomputer.
But when you can't pick it up or knock it over, it's a mainframe.
Once a programmer drowned in the sea. Many Marines where at that time on the
beach, but the programmer was shouting "F1 F1" and nobody understood it.
The boy is smoking and leaving smoke rings into the air.
The girl gets irritated with the smoke and says to her lover: "Can't you see
the warning written on the cigarettes packet, smoking is injurious to
health!"
The boy replies back: "Darling, I am a programmer. We don't worry about warnings, we only worry about errors."
Jack was a COBOL programmer in the mid to late 1990s. After years of being taken for granted and treated as a technological dinosaur by all the Client/Server programmers and website developers, he was finally getting some respect. He'd become a private consultant specializing in Year 2000 conversions.
Several years of this relentless, mind-numbing work had taken its toll on Jack. He began having anxiety dreams about the Year 2000. All he could think about was how he could avoid the year 2000 and all that came with it.
Jack decided to contact a company that specialized in cryogenics. He made a deal to have himself frozen until March 15th, 2000. The next thing he would know is he'd wake up in the year 2000; after the New Year celebrations and computer debacles; after the leap day. Nothing else to worry about except getting on with his life.
He was put into his cryogenic receptacle, the technicians set the revive date, he was given injections to slow his heartbeat to a bare minimum, and that was that.
The next thing that Jack saw was an enormous and very modern room filled with excited people. They were all shouting "I can't believe it!" and "It's a miracle" and "He's alive!". There were cameras (unlike any he'd ever seen) and equipment that looked like it came out of a science fiction movie.
Someone who was obviously a spokesperson for the group stepped forward. Jack couldn't contain his enthusiasm. "Is it over?" he asked. "Is the year 2000 already here? Are all the millennial parties and promotions and crises all over and done with?"
The spokesman explained that there had been a problem with the programming of the timer on Jack's cryogenic receptacle, it hadn't been year 2000 compliant. It was actually eight thousand years later, not the year 2000. Technology had advanced to such a degree that everyone had virtual reality interfaces which allowed them to contact anyone else on the planet.
"That sounds terrific," said Jack. "But I'm curious. Why is everybody so interested in me?"
"Well," said the spokesman. "The year 10000 is just around the corner, and it says in your files that you know COBOL".
APL is a write-only language.
In C we had to code our own bugs. In C++ we can inherit them.
C gives you enough rope to hang yourself. C++ also gives you the tree object to tie it to.
With C you can shoot yourself in the leg. With C++ you can reuse the bullet.
A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup and mustard.
PL/I is for programmers who can't decide whether to write in COBOL or Fortran.
The most important thing in the programming language is the name. A language will not succeed without a good name. I have recently invented a very good name and now I am looking for a suitable language.
Why all Pascal programmers ask to live in Atlantis?
Because it is below C level.
Have you heared they are developing an Object Oriented version of COBOL? It's called...
Programming Languages are Like Cars
Assembler: A formula I race car. Very fast but difficult to drive
and maintain.
FORTRAN II: A Model T Ford. Once it was the king of the road.
FORTRAN IV: A Model A Ford.
FORTRAN 77: a six-cylinder Ford Fairlane with standard transmission
and no seat belts.
COBOL: A delivery van. It's bulky and ugly but it does the work.
BASIC: A second-hand Rambler with a rebuilt engine and patched
upholstery. Your dad bought it for you to learn to drive.
You'll ditch it as soon as you can afford a new one.
PL/I: A Cadillac convertible with automatic transmission, a
two-tone paint job, white-wall tires, chrome exhaust
pipes, and fuzzy dice hanging in the windshield.
C++: A black Firebird, the all macho car. Comes with optional
seatbelt (lint) and optional fuzz buster (escape to assembler).
ALGOL 60: An Austin Mini. Boy that's a small car.
ALGOL 68: An Aston Martin. An impressive car but not just anyone
can drive it.
Pascal: A Volkswagon Beetle. It's small but sturdy. Was once
popular with intellectual types.
LISP: An electric car. It's simple but slow. Seat belts are
not available.
PROLOG/LUCID: Prototype concept cars.
FORTH: A go-cart.
LOGO: A kiddie's replica of a Rolls Royce. Comes with a
real engine and a working horn.
APL: A double-decker bus. It takes rows and columns of
passengers to the same place all at the same time
but it drives only in reverse and is instrumented
in Greek.
Ada: An army-green Mercedes-Benz staff car. Power steering,
power brakes, and automatic transmission are standard.
No other colors or options are available. If it's good
enough for generals, it's good enough for you.
Java: All-terrain very slow vehicle.
What is an example of a never halting program?
Friedrichs and Magnus in front of an open elevator, each saying "you go first".
Why Client Server Computing is like Teenage Sex
It is on everybody's mind all the time.
Everyone is talking about it all the time.
Everyone thinks everyone else is doing it.
Almost no one is really doing it.
The few who are doing it are:
Life Before the Computer
An application was for employment
A program was a TV show
A cursor used profanity
A keyboard was a piano!
Memory was something that you lost with age
A CD was a bank account
And if you had a 3 ½ inch floppy
You hoped nobody found out!
Compress was something you did to garbage
Not something you did to a file
And if you unzipped anything in public
You'd be in jail for awhile!
Log on was adding wood to a fire
Hard drive was a long trip on the road
A mouse pad was where a mouse lived
And a backup happened to your commode!
Cut - you did with a pocket knife
Paste you did with glue
A web was a spider's home
And a virus was the flu!
I guess I'll stick to my pad and paper
And the memory in my head
I hear nobody's been killed in a computer crash
But when it happens they wish they were dead!
There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies, and benchmarks.
Software Development Cycle
A grade school teacher was asking his pupils what their parents did for
a living. "Tim, you be first. What does your mother do all day?"
Tim stood up and proudly said, "She's a doctor."
"That's wonderful. How about you, Amy?"
Amy shyly stood up, scuffed her feet and said, "My father is a mailman."
"Thank you, Amy" said the teacher. "What does your parent do, Billy?"
Billy proudly stood up and announced, "My daddy plays piano in a whorehouse."
The teacher was aghast and went to Billy's house and rang the bell. Billy's father answered the door. The teacher explained what his son had said and demanded an explanation. Billy's dad said, "I'm actually a system programmer specializing in TCP/IP communication protocol on UNIX systems. How can I explain a thing like that to a seven-year-old?"
Unix is user friendly. It's just very particular about who it's friends are.
A programmer was walking along the beach when he found a lamp. Upon rubbing the lamp a genie appeared who stated "I am the most powerful genie in the world. I can grant you any wish you want, but only one wish."
The programmer pulled out a map of the Mediterranean area and said "I'd like there to be a just and last peace among the people in the middle east."
The genie responded, "Gee, I don't know. Those people have been fighting since the beginning of time. I can do just about anything, but this is beyond my limits."
The programmer then said, "Well, I am a programmer and my programs have a lot of users. Please make all the users satisfied with my programs, and let them ask sensible changes"
Genie: "Uh, let me see that map again."
All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors.
They say that the new super computer knows everything. A skeptical man came and asked the computer, "Where is my father?"
The computer bleeped for a short while, and then came back with "Your father is fishing in Michigan."
The skeptical man said triumphantly, "You see? I knew this was nonsense. My father has been dead for twenty years."
"No", replied the super computer immediately. "Your mother's husband has been dead for twenty years. Your father just landed a three pound trout."
The programmer to his son: "Here, I brought you a new basketball."
"Thank you, daddy, but where is the user's guide?"
The problem with physicists is that they tend to cheat in order to get results.
The problem with mathematicians is that they tend to work on toy problems in order to get results.
The problem with program verifiers is that they tend to cheat at toy problems in order to get results.
A software verifier read in the Bible that God protects all fools, and decided to test it empirically. He jumped out of the window and broke a leg. There he lies, writhing in pain, and happily thinks: "I never really considered myself a fool, but I never knew I was THAT clever!"
CIA - Computer Industry Acronyms
CD-ROM: Consumer Device, Rendered Obsolete in Months
PCMCIA: People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms
ISDN: It Still Does Nothing
SCSI: System Can't See It
MIPS: Meaningless Indication of Processor Speed
DOS: Defunct Operating System
WINDOWS: Will Install Needless Data On Whole System
OS/2: Obsolete Soon, Too
PnP: Plug and Pray
APPLE: Arrogance Produces Profit-Losing Entity
IBM: I Blame Microsoft
DEC: Do Expect Cuts
MICROSOFT: Most Intelligent Customers Realize Our Software Only Fools Teenagers
CA: Constant Acquisitions
COBOL: Completely Obsolete Business Oriented Language
LISP: Lots of Insipid and Stupid Parentheses
MACINTOSH: Most Applications Crash; If Not, The Operating System Hangs
AAAAA: American Association Against Acronym Abuse.
WYSIWYMGIYRRLAAGW: What You See Is What You Might Get If You're Really Really Lucky And All Goes Well.
Murphy's Laws of Computing
Ten Commandments for Stress Free Programming
| Drug Dealers and Software Engineers - A Comparison | |
| Drug Dealers | Software Engineers |
| "The first one is free" | "Download a free trial version" |
| Have important South-Asia connections (to help move the stuff) | Have important South-Asia connections (to help debug the code) |
| Strange jargon: "Stick", "Rock", "Dime bag", "E" | Strange jargon: "TCP/IP", "XML", "Java", "SQL" |
| Realize that there's a ton of cash in the 14- to 25-year-old market | Realize that there's a ton of cash in the 14- to 25-year-old market |
| Job is assisted by industry's producing newer, more potent mixes | Job is assisted by industry's producing newer, faster machines |
| Often seen in the company of pimps and hustlers | Often seen in the company of marketing people and venture capitalists |
| Their products cause unhealthy addictions. | DOOM. Quake. SimCity. Duke Nukem 3D.; Enough said. |
| Do your job well and you can sleep with sexy movie stars who depend on you | Damn! Damn! DAMN! |
Real software engineers...
Real software engineers don't read dumps. They
never generate them, and on the rare occasions that they come across them,
they are vaguely amused.
Real software engineers don't comment their code.
The identifiers are so mnemonic they don't have to.
Real software engineers don't write applications
programs, they implement algorithms.
Real software engineers don't program in a
language that doesn't have recursive function calls.
Real software engineers don't debug programs, they
verify correctness.
Real software engineers like C's structured
constructs, but they are suspicious of it because they have heard that it
lets you get "close to the machine."
Real software engineers admire PASCAL for its
discipline and spartan purity, but they find it difficult to actually
program in.
Real software engineers work from 9 to 5, because
that is the way the job is described in the formal spec. Working late would
feel like using an undocumented external procedure.
Real software engineers like writing their own
compilers, preferably in PROLOG.
Real software engineers regret the existence of
COBOL, FORTRAN and BASIC. PL/I is getting there, but it is not nearly
disciplined enough; far too much built in functions.
Real software engineers aren't too happy about the
existence of users. Users always seem to have the wrong idea about what the
implementation and verification of algorithms is all about.
Programming Revisited
Windows 95 is a 32 bit extension for a 16 bit patch to an 8 bit operating
system originally coded for a 4 bit microprocessor by a 2 bit company that
can't stand 1 bit of competition.
Have you heard about the new Cray super computer? It's so fast, it executes
an infinite loop in 6 seconds.
If God had intended Man to program, we would be born with serial I/O ports.
The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance.
The computer is mightier than the pen, the sword, and usually, the programmer.
The determined programmer can write a COBOL program in any language.
Every program is either trivial or it contains at least one bug.
Al-gor-ithm" means "The unscrupulous technique of continuing to count and
re-count until you get the result you want."
(Sent by Gary Gilmore)
Don't get sucked in by comments--only debug code.
If cars had followed the same developmental path as computers, a Rolls Royce
would cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and crash once a year.
If builders built buildings the way programmers write programs, then the
first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization.
Demo-oriented programming: A programming style, typically used by startups,
focusing on the demo of the program being developed, so it will easily catch
the prospective investor.
How programmers do it...
Programmers do it byte by byte.
Programmers do it with bytes and nibbles.
Programmers try to do it again and again.
Programmers do it with acronyms.
Programmers do it by computer simulation.
Programmers do it according to the specifications.
Programmers do it over and over until they get it right.
Ada programmers do it by committee.
ALGOL 68 programmers do it od.
APL programmers do it in a line.
Assembler programmers do it a bit at a time.
C++ programmers do it with class.
Fortran programmers do it with double precision.
LISP (programmers (do (it (with (parentheses))))).
Logo programmers do it for an educational experience.
Prolog programmers do it artificially.
Smalltalk programmers have more methods.
System programmers do it with interrupts.
|
You Might Be a Programmer if...
you know that "goto considered harmful". you are looking for the "else" at the end of this joke. you believe that making a wrong program worse is no sin. every combination of three letters is a meaningful acronym for you. when you are counting objects, you go "0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D...". you can remember seventeen computer passwords but not your anniversary. you are sure that the year 2000 is a leap year, and know why it is dangerous. you start laughing hysterically when the topic of computer reliability is brought up. you go to balance your checkbook and discover that you're doing the math in hexadecimal. the language you are best speaking is English, but the language you are best writing is Java. on vacation, you are reading a computer manual and turning the pages faster than everyone else who is reading John Grisham novels. |
How many software engineers does it take to change a light bulb?
None. "We'll document it in the manual."
None. It's a hardware problem.
1.000000001.
Two. One always leaves in the middle of the project.
Four. One to design the change, one to implement it, one to document it,
and one to maintain it afterwards.
Four, plus one senior analyst to manage the project, one technical writer
to correct the spelling and grammar of the one who documented it, one
light bulb librarian, a sales-force of at least five to drum up enough users
who want to turn the light on, 274 users to burn out the new bulb, at which
point we go to tender for another light bulb change,...
Five. Two to write the specification program, one to screw it in,
and two to explain why the project was late.
Only one, but she's not available till the year 2000.
"The change is 90% complete."
"It's hard to say. Each time we separate the bulb into
its modules to do unit testing, it stops working."
Of course, as everyone knows, just five years ago all it
took was a bunch of kids in a garage in Palo Alto to change a light bulb.
How many maintenance programmers does it take to change a light bulb?
None. They try to fix the old one.
"We looked at the light fixture and decided there's no
point trying to maintain it. We're going to rewrite it from scratch.
Could you wait two months?"
How many software testers does it take to change a light bulb?
None. "We just recognized darkness, fixing it is someone
else's problem."
How many C++ programmers does it take to change a light bulb?
"You're still thinking procedurally! A properly designed
light bulb object would inherit a change method from a generic light bulb
class!"
How many Java programmers does it take to change a light bulb?
One, to generate a "ChangeLightBulb" event to the socket.
How many Windows programmers does it take to change a light bulb?
Seventy two. One to write WinGetLightBulbHandle, one to
write WinQueryStatusLightBulb, one to write WinGetLightSwitchHandle ...
How many data base people does it take to change a light bulb?
Three: One to write the light bulb removal program, one
to write the light bulb insertion program, and one to act as a light
bulb administrator to make sure nobody else tries to change the light
bulb at the same time.
How many IBM employees does it take to change a light bulb?
Fifteen. Five to do it, and ten to write document number
GC7500439-001, Multitasking Incadescent Source System Facility, of which
10% of the pages state only "This page intentionally left blank".
How many technical writers does it take to change a light bulb?
Just one, provided there's a programmer around to explain
how to do it.
More jokes, complaints, Coke Light? Send it to David Shay
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