Encyclopedia of Humor

Grade `âƒÐC iferation of modern programming languages (all of which seem to have stolen countless features from one another) sometimes makes it difficult to remember what language you’re currently using. This handy reference is offered as a public service to help programmers who find themselves in such a dilemma. TASK: Shoot yourself in the foot. C: You shoot yourself in the foot. 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.” 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. Pascal: The compiler won’t let you shoot yourself in the foot. 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. 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. 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… FORTH: Foot in yourself shoot. 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. BASIC: Shoot yourself in the foot with a water pistol. On large systems, continue until entire lower body is waterlogged. 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. HyperTalk: Put the first bullet of gun into foot left of leg of you. Answer the result. 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. APL: You shoot yourself in the foot, then spend all day figuring out how to do it in fewer characters. 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 % Concurrent Euclid: You shoot yourself in somebody else’s foot. 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. Paradox: Not only can you shoot yourself in the foot, your users can, too. Access: You try to point the gun at your foot, but it shoots holes in all your Borland distribution diskettes instead. 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. 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. Modula2: After realizing that you can’t actually accomplish anything in this language, you shoot yourself in the head.

The proliferation of modern programming languages (all of which seem to have stolen countless features from one another) sometimes makes it difficult to remember what language you’re currently using. This handy reference is offered as a public service to help programmers who find themselves in such a dilemma.

TASK: Shoot yourself in the foot.

C: You shoot yourself in the foot.

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.”

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.

Pascal: The compiler won’t let you shoot yourself in the foot.

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.

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.

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…

FORTH: Foot in yourself shoot.

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.

BASIC: Shoot yourself in the foot with a water pistol. On large systems, continue until entire lower body is waterlogged.

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.

HyperTalk: Put the first bullet of gun into foot left of leg of you. Answer the result.

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.

APL: You shoot yourself in the foot, then spend all day figuring out how to do it in fewer characters.

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
%

Concurrent Euclid: You shoot yourself in somebody else’s foot.

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.

Paradox: Not only can you shoot yourself in the foot, your users can, too.

Access: You try to point the gun at your foot, but it shoots holes in all your Borland distribution diskettes instead.

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.

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.

Modula2: After realizing that you can’t actually accomplish anything in this language, you shoot yourself in the head.

Never leave diskettes in the drive, as the data can leak out of the disk and corrode the inner mechanics of the drive. Diskettes should be rolled up and stored in pencil holders.

Diskettes should be cleaned and waxed once a week. Microscopic metal particles may be removed by waving a powerful magnet over the surface of the disk. Any stubborn metal shavings can be removed with scouring powder and steel wool. When waxing a diskette, make sure the surface is even. This will allow the diskette to spin faster, resulting in better access time.

Do not fold diskettes unless they do not fit into the drive. “Big” Diskettes may be folded and used in “Little” drives.

Never insert a diskette into the drive upside down. The data can fall off the surface of the disk and jam the intricate mechanics of the drive.

Diskettes cannot be backed up by running them through a photo copy machine. If your data is going to need to be backed up, simply insert TWO diskettes into your drive. Whenever you update a document, the data will be written onto both disks. A handy tip for more legible backup copies: Keep a container of iron filings at your desk. When you need to make two copies, sprinkle iron filings liberally between the diskettes before inserting them into the drive.

Diskettes should not be removed or inserted from the drive while the red light is on or flashing. Doing so could result in smeared or possibly unreadable text. Occasionally, the red light remains flashing in what is known as a “hung” or “hooked” state. If your system is hooking, you will probably need to insert a few coins before being allowed to access the slot.

If your diskette is full and needs more storage space, remove the disk from the drive and shake vigorously for two minutes. This will pack the data enough (data compression) to allow for more storage. Be sure to cover all openings with scotch tape to prevent loss of data.

Data access time may be greatly improved by cutting more holes in the diskette jacket. This will provide more simultaneous access points to the disk.

Periodically spray diskettes with insecticide to prevent system bugs from spreading.

I used to work in a computer store and one day we had a gentleman call in with a smoking power supply. The service representative was having a bit of trouble convincing this guy that he had a hardware problem.

Service Rep: Sir, something has burned within your power supply.

Customer: I bet that there is some command that I can put into the AUTOEXEC.BAT file that will take care of this.

Service Rep: There is nothing that software can do to help you with this problem.

Customer: I know that there is something I can put in… some command… maybe it should go into the CONFIG.SYS.

[After a few minutes of going round and round]

Service Rep: Okay, I am not supposed to tell anyone this but there is a hidden command in some versions of DOS that you can use. I want you to edit your AUTOEXEC.BAT and add the last line as C:DOSNOSMOKE and reboot your computer.

[Customer does this]

Customer: It is still smoking.

Service Rep: I guess you’ll need to call Microsoft and ask them for a patch for the NOSMOKE.EXE.

[The customer then hung up. We thought that we had heard the last of this guy. But NO; he calls back four hours later!]

Service Rep: Hello, Sir, how is your computer?

Customer: I called Microsoft and they said that my power supply is incompatible with their NOSMOKE.EXE and that I need to get a new one. I was wondering when I can have that done and how much it will cost….

A computer programmer happens across a frog in the road. The frog pipes up, “I’m really a beautiful princess and if you kiss me, I’ll stay with you for a week”. The programmer shrugs his shoulders and puts the frog in his pocket.

A few minutes later, the frog says “OK, OK, if you kiss me, I’ll give you great sex for a week”. The programmer nods and puts the frog back in his pocket.

A few minutes later, “Turn me back into a princess and I’ll give you great sex for a whole year!”. The programmer smiles and walks on.

Finally, the frog says, “What’s wrong with you? I’ve promised you great sex for a year from a beautiful princess and you won’t even kiss a frog?”

“I’m a programmer,” he replies. “I don’t have time for sex…. But a talking frog is pretty neat.”