Software & Programmers Truths
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Any computer project will take twice as long as you think it will
even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law. (Douglas Hofstadter). Quand on lui demandait ce que signifiait pour lui "être un grand
écrivain", To translate this click on Babelfish and select French to English Eye halve a spelling chequer Eye strike a key and type a word As soon as a mist ache is maid Eve have run this poem threw it Anon. Tokyo, Japan, May 20 - Sony has announced its own computer operating system now available on its hot new portable PC called the Vaio. Instead of producing the cryptic error messages characteristic of Microsoft's Windows and DOS Systems, Sony's chairman Asai Tawara said, "We intend to capture the high ground by putting a human, Japanese face on what has been, until now, an operating system that reflects Western cultural hegemony.For example, we have replaced the impersonal and unhelpful Microsoft error messages with our own Japanese haiku poetry." The haiku messages are just as informative as Microsoft's and cause a thoughtful pause sufficient allow the user to put aside the impulse to put a fist through the monitor screen. The chairman went on to give examples of the error messages: A file that big? You seek a Web site. Chaos reigns within. ABORTED effort: Yesterday it worked. First snow, then silence. With searching comes loss. Windows NT crashed. Stay the patient course. Three things are certain: You step in the stream Out of memory. Having been erased, Serious error. An Ode to Life Before the Computer Age
Meg was the name of my girlfriend An application was for employment A Memory was something that you lost with age Compress was something you did to the garbage Log on was adding wood to the fire Cut you did with a pocket knife I guess I'll stick to my pad and paper A language instructor was explaining to her class that French nouns, unlike their English counterparts, are grammatically designated as masculine or feminine. Things like "chalk" or "pencil," she described, would have a gender association. For example: House is feminine-"la" maison. In English, of course, words are of neutral gender. Puzzled, one student raised his hand and asked, "What gender is a computer?" The teacher wasn't certain which it was, and so divided the class into two groups and asked them to decide if a computer should be masculine or feminine. One group was composed of the women in the class, and the other of men. Both groups were asked to give four reasons for their recommendation. The men decided that computers should definitely be referred to
in the feminine gender (la) because: The group of women, however, concluded that computers should be
referred to in the masculine (le) gender because: A tourist walked into a pet shop and was looking at the animals on display. While he was there, another customer walked in and said to the shop keeper, "I'll have a C monkey please". The shopkeeper nodded, went over to a cage at the side of the shop and took out a monkey. He fit a collar and leash, handed it to the customer, saying, "That'll be £5000." The customer paid and walked out with his monkey. Startled, the tourist went over to the shopkeeper and said, "That was a very expensive monkey. Most of them are only a few hundred pounds. Why did it cost so much?" The shopkeeper answered, "Ah, that monkey can program in C - very fast, tight code, no bugs, well worth the money." The tourist looked at the monkey in another cage. "That one's even more expensive - £10,000! What does it do?" "Oh, that one's a C++ monkey; it can manage object-oriented programming, Visual C++, even some Java. All the really useful stuff," said the shopkeeper. The tourist looked around for a little longer and saw a third monkey in a cage of its own. The price tag around its neck read £50,000. He gasped to the shopkeeper, "That one costs more than all the others put together! What on earth does it do?" The shopkeeper replied, "Well, I haven't actually seen it do anything, but it says it's an engineer." If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port, If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash, If the label on the cable on the table at your house When the copy of your floppy's getting sloppy in the disk,  Sneak
preview of Microsoft's new keyboardfor Windows 3000 / XPS MEMO: To all employees SUBJECT: Increased productivity Management has determined that there is no longer any need for network or software applications support.(See below) The goal is to remove all computers from the desktop by December 31, 1999. Instead, everyone will be provided with an Etch-A-Sketch. There are many sound reasons for doing this: 1. No Y2K problems 2. No technical glitches keeping work from being done. 3. No more wasted time reading and writing emails. Frequently Asked Questions for Etch-A-Sketch Tech Support : Q: My Etch-A-Sketch has all of these funny little lines all over the screen. A: Pick it up and shake it. Q: How do I turn my Etch-A-Sketch off? A: Pick it up and shake it. Q: What's the shortcut for Undo? A: Pick it up and shake it. Q: How do I create a New Document window? A: Pick it up and shake it. Q: How do I set the background and foreground to the same colour? A: Pick it up and shake it. Q: What is the proper procedure for rebooting my Etch-A-Sketch? A: Pick it up and shake it. Q: How do I delete a document on my Etch-A-Sketch? A: Pick it up and shake it. Q: How do I save my Etch-A-Sketch document? A: Don't shake it. Describe a computer contractor in "C"
(sung to The Beatles "Let it Be") When I find my code in tons of trouble, As the deadline fast approaches, Write in C, write in C, I used to write a lot of FORTRAN, If you've just spent nearly 30 hours Write in C, write in C, Write in C, write in C, { Guitar Solo } Write in C, write in C, And when the screen is fuzzy, A thousand people people swear that T.P. Write in C, write in C, Write in C, write in C, A helicopter was flying around above Seattle when an electrical malfunction disabled all of the aircraft's electronic navigation and communications equipment. Due to the clouds and haze, the pilot could not determine the helicopter's position and course to steer to the airport. The pilot saw a tall building, flew toward it, circled, drew a handwritten sign, and held it in the helicopter's window. The pilot's sign said 'WHERE AM I?' in large letters. People in the tall building quickly responded to the aircraft, drew a large sign, and held it in a building window. Their sign said 'YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER.' The pilot smiled, waved, looked at his map, determined the course to steer to SEATAC airport, and landed safely. After they were on the ground, the copilot asked the pilot how the 'YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER' sign helped determine their position. The pilot responded 'I knew that had to be the MICROSOFT building because they gave me a technically correct, but completely useless answer.' Those
Funny People at Microsoft The People at Microsoft really are amazing. After all the rubbish they have had to tolerate - such as investigations by the US Justice Department and really critical articles in The Canberra Times - the guys and girls at Redmond still have a sense of humour. These one-liners came out of Microsoft and all I can say is: Thanks people. Although, on second thoughts, they probably don't know I've got them. And, on third thoughts, they probably don't give a stuff. Buy a Pentium 586/2GHz so you can reboot faster. 2 + 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2. Computers make very fast, very accurate, mistakes. Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are. My software never has bugs. It just develops random features. The information went data way The definition of an Upgrade: Take old bugs out, put new ones in. The name is Baud...James Baud. C: \> Bad command or file name! Go stand in the corner. Bad command. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaay.. Why doesn't DOS ever say EXCELLENT command or filename! As a computer, I find your faith in technology amusing. Southern DOS: Y'all reckon? (Yep/Nope) File not found. Should I fake it? (Y/N) Ethernet (n): something used to catch the etherbunny. An error? Impossible! My modem is error correcting CONGRESS.sys. Corrupted: Re-boot Washington D.C. (Y/N)? Does fuzzy logic tickle? A computers attention span is as long as its power cord. 11th commandment:- Covet not thy neighbours Pentium 24 hours in a day, 24 beers in a case - coincidence? Disinformation is not as good as datinformation. Windows: Just another pane in the glass. SENILE.COM found...Out Of Memory... Whos General Failure & whys he reading my disk? Ultimate office automation: networked coffee. RAM disk is not an installation procedure. Shell to DOS. Come in DOS, do you copy? All computers wait at the same speed. DEFINITION: Computer - a device designed to speed and automate errors. Smash forehead on keyboard to continue. Enter any 11-digit prime number to continue. ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI! E-mail returned to sender - insufficient voltage. Help! Im modeming ... and I cant hang up!!! Error: Keyboard not attached. Press Fl to continue. 640K ought to be enough for anybody. Bill Gates. 1981 DOS Tip 17: add DEVICE=FNGRCROS.SYS to CONFIG.SYS Hidden DOS secret: add BUGS=OFF to your CONFlG.SYS Press any key - no, no, no, NOT THAT ONE! Press any key to continue or any other key to quit. Excuse me for butting in, but Im interruptdriven. REALITY.SYS corrupted: Reboot universe? (Y/N/Q) Sped up my XT; ran it on 220v! Works greO?--7/8 Error reading FAT record: Try the SKINNY one? (Y/N) Read my chips: No new upgrades! Hit any user to continue. 2400 Baud makes you want to get out and push!! I hit the CTRL key but Im still not in control! Will the information superhighway have any rest stops? Disk Full - Press Fl to belch. Back-up not found.- (A)bort (R)etry (T)hrowup Back-up not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic (R)etry, (T)ake down entire network? Back-up not found: (A)bort, (R)etry, (G)et a beer? If debugging is the process of removing bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in. Programmers dont die, they just GOSUB without RETURN. Programmer: a red-eyed, mumbling mammal capable of conversing with inanimate objects. Real programmers don't document. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand. Beware of programmers who carry screwdrivers. Relax, its only ONES and ZEROS! If Operating Systems were Airlines DOS Air: Passengers walk out onto the runway, grab hold of the
plane, push it until it gets in the air, hop on, then jump off when
it hits the ground. They grab the plane again, push it back into
the air, hop on, jump off... Windows 3000 Source Code revealed ! /* TOP SECRET Microsoft(c) CodeProject: Chicago+(tm) Projected release-date: Summer 2000 or 2001 or 2002 or 2003 maybe*
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