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April 14th, 2002:
This page created... Serious stuff in the works.
Genesis
In the beginning God created the Bit and the Byte. And from those he created the Word.
And there were two Bytes in the Word; and nothing else existed. And God separated the One from the Zero; and he saw it was good.
And God said - Let the Data be; And so it happened. And God said - Let the Data go to their proper places. And he created floppy disks and hard disks and compact disks.
And God said - Let the computers be, so there would be a place to put floppy disks and hard disks and compact disks. Thus God created computers and called them hardware.
And there was no Software yet. But God created programs; small and big... And told them - Go and multiply yourselves and fill all the Memory.
And God said - I will create the Programmer; And the Programmer will make new programs and govern over the computers and programs and Data.
And God created the Programmer; and put him at Data Center; And God showed the Programmer the Catalog Tree and said You can use all the volumes and subvolumes but DO NOT USE Windows.
And God said - It is not Good for the programmer to be alone. He took a bone from the Programmer's body and created a creature that would look up at the Programmer; and admire the Programmer; and love the things the Programmer does; And God called the creature: the User.
And the Programmer and the User were left under the naked DOS and it was Good.
But Bill was smarter than all the other creatures of God. And Bill said to the User - Did God really tell you not to run any programs?
And the User answered - God told us that we can use every program and every piece of Data but told us not to run Windows or we will die.
And Bill said to the User - How can you talk about something you did not even try. The moment you run Windows you will become equal to God. You will be able to create anything you like by a simple click of your mouse.
And the User saw that the fruits of the Windows were nicer and easier to use. And the User saw that any knowledge was useless - since Windows could replace it.
So the User installed the Windows on his computer; and said to the Programmer that it was good.
And the Programmer immediately started to look for new drivers. And God asked him - What are you looking for? And the Programmer answered - I am looking for new drivers because I can not find them in the DOS. And God said - Who told you need drivers? Did you run Windows? And the Programmer said - It was Bill who told us to !
And God said to Bill - Because of what you did you will be hated by all the creatures. And the User will always be unhappy with you. And you will always sell Windows.
And God said to the User - Because of what you did, the Windows will disappoint you and eat up all your Resources; and you will have to use lousy programs; and you will always rely on the Programmers help.
And God said to the Programmer - Because you listened to the User you will never be happy. All your programs will have errors and you will have to fix them and fix them to the end of time.
And God threw them out of the Data Center and locked the door and secured it with a password.
GENERAL PROTECTION FAULT
A project manager, a computer programmer and a computer operator are driving down the road when the car they are in gets a flat tire. The three men try to solve the problem. The 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 Certified Solution Developer passed by and said: "Try to get off the car, close all windows, and then get in and try again."
A Software Process 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 Process Engineer, "Before we do anything, I think we should push the car back up the road and see if it happens again. Then we can document it as repeatable."
Why do programmers always get Christmas and Halloween mixed up?
Because DEC 25 = OCT 31
"Have you heard about the object-oriented way to become wealthy?"
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 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 technical writers does it take to change a light bulb?
Just one, provided there's a programmer around to explain how to do it.
How many software engineers does it take to change a light bulb?
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 group of project managers were given the assignment to measure the height of a flagpole. So they go out to the flagpole with ladders and tape measures, and they're falling off the ladders, dropping the tape measures -- the whole thing is just a mess. A programmer comes along and sees what they're trying to do, walks over, pulls the flagpole out of the ground, lays it flat, measures it from end to end, gives the measurement to one of the managers, puts the flagpole back and walks away. After he leaves, one manager turns to another and laughs. "Isn't that just like a programmer? We're looking for the HEIGHT and he gives us the LENGTH!!"
Software Development Cycle
Programmer produces code he believes is bug-free.
Product is tested. 20 bugs are found.
Programmer fixes 10 of the bugs and explains to the testing department that the other 10 aren't really bugs.
Testing department finds that five of the fixes didn't work and discovers 15 new bugs.
Repeat three times steps 3 and 4.
Due to marketing pressure and an extremely premature product announcement based on overly-optimistic programming schedule, the product is released.
Users find 137 new bugs.
Original programmer, having cashed his royalty check, is nowhere to be found.
Newly-assembled programming team fixes almost all of the 137 bugs, but introduce 456 new ones.
Original programmer sends underpaid testing department a postcard from Fiji. Entire testing department quits.
Company is bought in a hostile takeover by competitor using profits from their latest release, which had 783 bugs.
New CEO is brought in by board of directors. He hires a programmer to redo program from scratch.
Programmer produces code he believes is bug-free...
370 JCL: You send your foot down to MIS and include a 400-page document explaining exactly how you want it to be shot. Three years later, your foot comes back deep- fried.
Access: You try to point the gun at your foot, but it shoots holes in all your Borland distribution diskettes instead.
Ada: After correctly packing your foot, you attempt to concurrently load the gun, pull the trigger, scream, and shoot yourself in the foot. When you try, however, you discover you can't because your foot is of the wrong type.
Algol: You shoot yourself in the foot with a musket. The musket is aesthetically fascinating, and the wound baffles the adolescent medic in the emergency room.
APL: You shoot yourself in the foot, then spend all day figuring out how to do it in fewer characters.
Apple: We'll let you shoot yourself, but it'll cost you a bundle.
Arc Macro Language: You create a gun polygon and a bullet polygon. &Then &you &realize &that &your &foot &is &in &another UTM &zone.
Assembler: You try to shoot yourself in the foot, only to discover you must first invent the gun, the bullet, the trigger, and your foot.
BASIC: Shoot yourself in the foot with a water pistol. On large systems, continue until entire lower body is waterlogged.
C: You shoot yourself in the foot. You stand there until you write your own paramedic.
C++: You accidentally create a dozen instances of yourself and shoot them all in the foot. Providing emergency medical assistance is impossible since you can't tell which are bitwise copies and which are just pointing at others and saying, "That's me, over there. No... That one! Looks just like me!"
CDATS Command Files: You hand the gun to the originator of the command file, and line up your foot with those of everyone who has used the same copy and paste INI information for the INU. When you least expect it, the trigger is pulled.
COBOL: Using a COLT 45 HANDGUN, AIM gun at LEG.FOOT, THEN place ARM.HAND.FINGER on HANDGUN.TRIGGER and SQUEEZE. THEN return HANDGUN to HOLSTER. CHECK whether shoelace needs to be re-tied.
Concurrent Euclid: You shoot yourself in somebody else's foot.
FORTRAN: You shoot yourself in each toe, iteratively, until you run out of toes, then you read in the next foot and repeat. If you run out of bullets, you continue with the attempts to shoot yourself anyways because you have no exception-handling capability.
FORTH: Foot in yourself shoot. FORTH (alternate method): begin gun foot shot bullets not or blood until
English: You put your foot in your mouth, then bite it off.
Java: You can do it with a standalone interpreter, but a java applet will not let you access your foot.
LISP: You shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds...
Microsoft: Object "Foot" will be included in the next release. You can upgrade for $500, and it will be the 'best Foot ever.'
Microsoft (alternate method I): You can shoot yourself in the foot, but the method is buried in the docs somewhere.
Microsoft (alternate method II): You install Windows.
Microsoft (alternate method III): .What?
Microsoft Foundation Classes: You easily shoot yourself in the foot with Microsoft's underlying C and C++.
Modula2: After realizing that you can't actually accomplish anything in this language, you shoot yourself in the head.
Motif: You spend days writing a UIL description of your foot, the bullet, its trajectory, and the intricate scrollwork on the ivory handles of the gun. When you finally get around to pulling the trigger, the gun jams.
NeXT: We don't sell guns anymore, just ammunition.
Paradox: Not only can you shoot yourself in the foot, your users can, too.
Pascal: The compiler won't let you shoot yourself in the foot.
PL/I: You consume all available system resources, including all the offline bullets, The Data Processing & Payroll Department doubles its size, triples its budget, acquires four new mainframes, and drops the original one on your foot.
Prolog: You tell your program that you want to be shot in the foot. The program figures out how to do it, but the syntax doesn't permit it to explain it to you.
Revelation: You're sure you're going to be able to shoot yourself in the foot, just as soon as you figure out what all these nifty little bullet-thingies are for.
SNOBOL: If you succeed, shoot yourself in the left foot. If you fail, shoot yourself in the right foot.
Unix: % ls foot.c foot.h foot.o toe.c toe.o % rm * .o rm: .o no such file or directory % ls %
Visual Basic: You'll really only _appear_ to have shot yourself in the foot, but you'll have had so much fun doing it that you won't care.
