joe sixpack
Experienced Member
Oh im for sure you've seen these before maybe even on this forum.
Here's some old text files. Not all are computer related but still funny.
#1
A guide to man-machine interface
USER-FRIENDLY
C:\> DUR
Command not found. Try retyping
USER-HELPFUL
C:\> DUR
I don't understand DUR. Do you mean DIR ?
USER-UNFRIENDLY
C:\> DUR
C:\> DUR
C:\> DUR
C:\> DUR
USER-HOSTILE
C:\> DUR
Ha! A mistake! I'm sure you meant to say FORMAT, so that's what
I'll do.
USER-INDIFFERENT
C:\> DUR
DUR?
USER-PATRONIZING
C:\> DUR
Now, that's not quite right is it? Let's try again; this time,
use the manual that the nice salesperson gave you when you bought me.
USER-OBSEQUIOUS
C:\> DUR
I'm so very, very sorry but I don't understand that. I'm sure it
was my fault, but if you would please try again I'll do my best.
USER-SARCASTIC
C:\> DUR
Well, Look who's made a mistake then. Very unusual, I don't think.
USER-INSULTING
C:\> DUR
F*ck off
C:\> DIR
F*ck off
USER-SMUG
C:\> DUR
No
C:\> DOR
Nope
C:\> HELP
No
C:\> PLEASE
Not unless you give me a 300Mb hard disk to live on.
C:\> B*ST*RD
Abuse will get you nowhere
USER-ANALYTICAL
C:\> DUR
What makes you say that?
C:\> A TYPING MISTAKE
How long have you been making these mistakes?
C:\> BANANAS
Do you like bananas?
C:\> I LOVE THEM
Why do you bring up the subject of love?
...etc
USER-McDONALD
May I help you please?
C:\> DUR
I'm sorry but that command is not available at this time. Have a
nice day.
C:\> DIR
Will that be an MS-DOS directory?
C:\> YES
To read here, or for printout to take away?
C:\> HERE
Thank you. Have a nice day.
USER-MEGALOMANIAC
C:\> DUR
Don't bother me with trivial requests. I'm busy.
#2
From Dan Byrnes
In a crowded city at a crowded bus stop, a beautiful young woman was
waiting for the bus. She was decked out in a tight leather miniskirt
with matching tight leather boots and jacket. As the bus rolled up and
it became her turn to get on, she became aware that her skirt was too
tight to allow her leg to come up to the height of the first step on the
bus.
Slightly embarrassed and with a quick smile to the bus driver she
reached behind her and unzipped her skirt a little thinking that this
would give her enough slack to raise her leg. Again she tried to make
the step onto the bus only to discover she still couldn't!
So, a little more embarrassed she once again reached behind her and
unzipped her skirt a little more and for a second time could not get her
leg up because of the tight skirt.
So, with a coy little smile to the driver she again unzipped the
offending skirt to give a little more slack and again was unable to make
the step.
About this time the big Texan that was behind her in line picked her up
easily from the waist and placed her lightly on the step of the bus.
Well, she went ballistic and turned on the would-be hero, screeching at
him, "How dare you touch my body!! I don't even know who you are!"
At this the Texan drawled, "Well ma'am normally I would agree with you,
but after you unzipped my fly three times, I kinda figured that we was
friends.
#3
The Spoon (nroff'ed)
I took some clients out to dinner last week, and I noticed a
spoon in the shirt pocket of our waiter as he handed us the
menus. It seemed a little odd, but I dismissed it as a random
thing. Until our busboy came with water & tableware; he, too,
sported a spoon in his breast-pocket. I looked around the room,
and all the waiters, waitresses, busboys, etc had spoons in
their pockets. When our waiter returned to take our order, I
just had to ask, "Why the spoons?"
"Well," he explained, "our parent company recently hired some
Andersen Consulting efficiency experts to review all our
procedures,and after months of statistical analyses, they
concluded that our patrons drop spoons on the floor 73% more
often than any other utensil; at a frequency of 3 spoons per hour
per workstation. By preparing all our workers for this
contingency in advance, we can cut our trips to the kitchen down
and save time...nearly 1.5 extra man hours per shift."
Just as he concluded, a "ch-ching" came from the table behind
him, and he quickly replaced a fallen spoon with the one from his
pocket. "I'll grab another spoon the next time I'm in the kitchen
instead of making a special trip," he proudly explained.
I was impressed. "Thanks. I had to ask."
"No problem," he answered, then he continued to take our orders.
As the members of my dinner party took their turns, my eyes
darted back & forth from each person ordering and my menu.
That's when, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a thin, black
thread protruding from our waiter's fly. Again, I dismissed it;
yet I had to scan the room and, sure enough, there were other
waiters & busboys with strings hanging out of their trousers.
My curiosity overrode discretion at this point, so before he
could leave
I had to ask. "Excuse me, but...uh...why, or what...about that
string?"
"Oh, yeah" he began in a quieter tone. "Not many people are that
observant. That same efficiency group found we could save time
in the Men's room, too."
"How's that?"
"You see, by tying a string to the end of our, eh, selves, we can
pull it out at the urinals literally hands-free and thereby
eliminate the need to wash our hands, cutting time spent in the
restroom by over 93%!"
"Oh, that makes sense," I said, but then thinking thru the
process, I asked "Hey, wait-a-minute. If the string helps you
pull it out, how do you get it back in?"
"Well," he whispered, "I don't know about the other guys; but I
use my spoon.
#4
Three women die together in an accident and go to heaven. When they get
there, St. Peter says,
"We only have one rule here in heaven ... don't step on the ducks."
So they enter heaven, and sure enough, there are ducks all over the
place. It is almost impossible not to step on a duck, and although they
try their best to avoid them, the first woman accidentally steps on one.
Along comes St. Peter with the ugliest man she ever saw. St. Peter
chains them together and says
"Your punishment for stepping on a duck is! ... to spend eternity
chained to this ugly man!"
The next day, the second woman steps accidentally on a duck, and along
comes St. Peter, who doesn't miss a thing, and with him is another
extremely ugly man. He chains them together with the same admonishment
as for the first woman.
The third woman has observed all this and, not wanting to be chained for
all eternity to an ugly man, is very, VERY careful where she steps. She
manages to go months without stepping on any ducks, but one day St.
Peter comes up to her with the most handsome man she has ever laid eyes
on. Very tall, long eyelashes, muscular, and thin. St. Peter chains them
together without saying a word. The woman remarks,
"I wonder what I did to deserve being chained to you for all of
eternity?"
The guy says,
"I don't know about you, but I stepped on a duck!"
#5
A man wanted to prolong his sexual experiences so he went to see a
doctor about it. The doc told him that masturbating before sex often
helped men last longer during the act The man decided, "What the hell,
I'll try it," He spent the rest of the day thinking about where to do
it. He couldn't do it in his office. He thought about the restroom, but
that was too open. He considered an alley, but figured that was too
unsafe. Finally, he realized his solution.
On his way home, he pulled his truck over on the side of the highway. He
got out and crawled underneath as if he was examining the truck.
Satisfied with the privacy, he undid his pants and started to
masturbate. He closed his eyes and thought of his lover. As he grew
closer to orgasm, he felt a quick tug at the bottom of his pants. Not
wanting to lose his mental fantasy or the orgasm, he kept his eyes shut
and replied, "What?"
He heard, "This is the police. What's going on down there?"
The man replied, "I'm checking out the rear axle, it's busted." Back
came the reply, "Well, you might as well check your brakes too while
you're down there, because your truck rolled down the hill 5 minutes
ago."
#6
Subject: zen
In Japan, they are considering replacing the impersonal and unhelpful
Microsoft Error messages with Haiku poetry messages.
Haiku poetry has strict construction rules.
Each poem has only three lines, 17 syllables: five syllables in the
first line, seven in the second, five in the third.
Haiku is used to communicate a timeless message often achieving a
wistful, yearning and powerful insight through
extreme brevity -- the essence of Zen:
Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.
-------------------------------------------------------
Your file was so big.
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.
------------------------------------------
The Website you seek
Cannot be located, but
Countless more exist.
-------------------------------------------
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.
---------------------------------------------
Program aborting:
Close all that you have worked on.
You ask far too much.
---------------------------------------------
Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.
--------------------------------------------------
Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.
--------------------------------------------------
First snow, then silence.
This thousand-dollar screen dies
So beautifully.
--------------------------------------------------
With searching comes loss
And the presence of absence:
"My Novel" not found.
---------------------------------------------------
The Tao that is seen
Is not the true Tao-until
You bring fresh toner.
-------------------------------------------------
Stay the patient course.
Of little worth is your ire.
The network is down.
--------------------------------------------------
A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.
--------------------------------------------------
Three things are certain:
Death, taxes and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.
-------------------------------------------------
You step in the stream,
But the water has moved on.
This page is not here.
--------------------------------------------------
Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.
-------------------------------------------------
Having been erased,
The document you're seeking
Must now be retyped.
#7 And one of my personal fav's! :lol:
Shooting Yourself in the Foot
or
How to Determine Which Programming Language You're Using
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The proliferation of modern programming languages which seem to have stolen
countless features from each other sometimes makes it difficult to remember
which language you're using. This guide is offered as a public service to
help programmers in such dilemmas.
C
You shoot yourself in the foot.
C++
You accidently create a dozen instances of yourself and shoot them all
in the foot. Providing emergency medical care 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."
Objective-C (NeXT)
You write a protocol for shooting yourself in the foot so that all
people can get shot in their feet.
Ada
If you are dumb enough to actually use this language, the United States
Department of Defense will kidnap you, stand you up in front of a
firing squad, and tell the soldiers, "Shoot at his feet."
or
After correctly packaging 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 that your foot is of the wrong type.
Algol
You shoot yourself in the foot with a musket. The musket is
esthetically fascinating, and the wound baffles the adolescent medic in
the emergency room.
Pascal
The compiler won't let you shoot yourself in the foot.
APL
You hear a gunshot, and there's a hole in your foot, but you don't
remember enough linear algebra to understand what happened.
or
You shoot yourself in the foot, then spend all day figuring out how to
do it fewer characters.
Assembly
You crash the OS and overwrite the root disk. The system administrator
arrives and shoots you in the foot. After a moment of contemplation,
the administrator shoots himself in the foot and then hops around the
room rabidly shooting at everyone in sight.
or
You try to shoot yourself in the foot only to discover you must first
reinvent the gun, the bullet, and your foot.
BASIC
Shoot self in foot with water pistol. On big 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 so much fun doing it that you won't care.
COBOL
USEing a COLT45 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 retied.
DBase
You squeeze the trigger, but the bullet moves so slowly that by the
time your foot feels the pain you've forgotten why you shot yourself
anyway.
DBase IV version 1.0
You pull the trigger, but it turns out that the gun was a
poorly-designed grenade and the whole building blows up.
Forth
yourself foot shoot.
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 anyway because you have no exception- processing ability.
Modula/2
After realizing that you can't actually accomplish anything in the
language, you shoot yourself in the head.
sh, csh, etc.
You can't remember the syntax for anything, so you spend five hours
reading man pages before giving up. You then shoot the computer and
switch to C.
Smalltalk
You spend so much time playing with the graphics and windowing system
that your boss shoots you in the foot, takes away your workstation, and
makes you develop in COBOL on a character terminal.
perl
You read your entire body into a small target and match everything that
resembles feet, replacing them with shot ones. It's possible to do this
with a single compact handmade gun, of which you can barely figure out
were to put the bullets by the time you finish building it.
PL/I
You consume all available system resources, including all the offline
bullets. The DataProcessing&Payroll Department doubles its size,
triples its budget, acquires four new mainframes, and drops the
original one on your foot.
Prolog
You attempt to shoot yourself in the foot, but the bullet, failing to
find its mark, backtracks to the gun which then explodes in your face.
or
You tell your program you want to be shot in the foot. The program
figures out how to do it, but the syntax doesn't allow it to explain.
SNOBOL
You grab your foot with your hand, then rewrite your hand to be a
bullet. The act of shooting the original foot then changes your
hand/bullet into yet another foot (a left foot).
or
If you succeed, shoot yourself in the left foot. If you fail, shoot
yourself in the right 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...
Scheme
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...
...but none of the other appendages are aware of this happening.
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 disks instead.
Revelation
You'll be able to shoot yourself in the foot just as soon as you figure
out what all these bullets are for.
English
You put your foot in your mouth, then bite it off.
CLIPPER
You grab a bullet, get ready to insert it in the gun so that ou can
shoot yourself in the foot, and discover that the gun that the bullet
fits has not yet been built, but should be arriving in the mail
_REAL_SOON_NOW_.
SQL
You cut your foot off, send it out to a service bureau and when it
returns, it has a hole in it, but will no longer fit the attachment at
the end of your leg.
370 JCL
You send your foot down to MIS with a 4000-page document explaining how
you want it to be shot. Three years later, your foot comes back
deep-fried.
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.
HyperTalk
Put the first bullet of the gun into foot left of leg of you. Answer
the result.
Motif
You spend days writing a UIL description of your foot, the trajectory,
the bullet, and the intricate scrollwork on the ivory handles of the
gun. When you finally get around to pulling the trigger, the gun jams.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hans Maurer, 1994-10-17, 1994-10-27
Anke Bodzin, 1996-02-22, 1997-12-08
Here's some old text files. Not all are computer related but still funny.
#1
A guide to man-machine interface
USER-FRIENDLY
C:\> DUR
Command not found. Try retyping
USER-HELPFUL
C:\> DUR
I don't understand DUR. Do you mean DIR ?
USER-UNFRIENDLY
C:\> DUR
C:\> DUR
C:\> DUR
C:\> DUR
USER-HOSTILE
C:\> DUR
Ha! A mistake! I'm sure you meant to say FORMAT, so that's what
I'll do.
USER-INDIFFERENT
C:\> DUR
DUR?
USER-PATRONIZING
C:\> DUR
Now, that's not quite right is it? Let's try again; this time,
use the manual that the nice salesperson gave you when you bought me.
USER-OBSEQUIOUS
C:\> DUR
I'm so very, very sorry but I don't understand that. I'm sure it
was my fault, but if you would please try again I'll do my best.
USER-SARCASTIC
C:\> DUR
Well, Look who's made a mistake then. Very unusual, I don't think.
USER-INSULTING
C:\> DUR
F*ck off
C:\> DIR
F*ck off
USER-SMUG
C:\> DUR
No
C:\> DOR
Nope
C:\> HELP
No
C:\> PLEASE
Not unless you give me a 300Mb hard disk to live on.
C:\> B*ST*RD
Abuse will get you nowhere
USER-ANALYTICAL
C:\> DUR
What makes you say that?
C:\> A TYPING MISTAKE
How long have you been making these mistakes?
C:\> BANANAS
Do you like bananas?
C:\> I LOVE THEM
Why do you bring up the subject of love?
...etc
USER-McDONALD
May I help you please?
C:\> DUR
I'm sorry but that command is not available at this time. Have a
nice day.
C:\> DIR
Will that be an MS-DOS directory?
C:\> YES
To read here, or for printout to take away?
C:\> HERE
Thank you. Have a nice day.
USER-MEGALOMANIAC
C:\> DUR
Don't bother me with trivial requests. I'm busy.
#2
From Dan Byrnes
In a crowded city at a crowded bus stop, a beautiful young woman was
waiting for the bus. She was decked out in a tight leather miniskirt
with matching tight leather boots and jacket. As the bus rolled up and
it became her turn to get on, she became aware that her skirt was too
tight to allow her leg to come up to the height of the first step on the
bus.
Slightly embarrassed and with a quick smile to the bus driver she
reached behind her and unzipped her skirt a little thinking that this
would give her enough slack to raise her leg. Again she tried to make
the step onto the bus only to discover she still couldn't!
So, a little more embarrassed she once again reached behind her and
unzipped her skirt a little more and for a second time could not get her
leg up because of the tight skirt.
So, with a coy little smile to the driver she again unzipped the
offending skirt to give a little more slack and again was unable to make
the step.
About this time the big Texan that was behind her in line picked her up
easily from the waist and placed her lightly on the step of the bus.
Well, she went ballistic and turned on the would-be hero, screeching at
him, "How dare you touch my body!! I don't even know who you are!"
At this the Texan drawled, "Well ma'am normally I would agree with you,
but after you unzipped my fly three times, I kinda figured that we was
friends.
#3
The Spoon (nroff'ed)
I took some clients out to dinner last week, and I noticed a
spoon in the shirt pocket of our waiter as he handed us the
menus. It seemed a little odd, but I dismissed it as a random
thing. Until our busboy came with water & tableware; he, too,
sported a spoon in his breast-pocket. I looked around the room,
and all the waiters, waitresses, busboys, etc had spoons in
their pockets. When our waiter returned to take our order, I
just had to ask, "Why the spoons?"
"Well," he explained, "our parent company recently hired some
Andersen Consulting efficiency experts to review all our
procedures,and after months of statistical analyses, they
concluded that our patrons drop spoons on the floor 73% more
often than any other utensil; at a frequency of 3 spoons per hour
per workstation. By preparing all our workers for this
contingency in advance, we can cut our trips to the kitchen down
and save time...nearly 1.5 extra man hours per shift."
Just as he concluded, a "ch-ching" came from the table behind
him, and he quickly replaced a fallen spoon with the one from his
pocket. "I'll grab another spoon the next time I'm in the kitchen
instead of making a special trip," he proudly explained.
I was impressed. "Thanks. I had to ask."
"No problem," he answered, then he continued to take our orders.
As the members of my dinner party took their turns, my eyes
darted back & forth from each person ordering and my menu.
That's when, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a thin, black
thread protruding from our waiter's fly. Again, I dismissed it;
yet I had to scan the room and, sure enough, there were other
waiters & busboys with strings hanging out of their trousers.
My curiosity overrode discretion at this point, so before he
could leave
I had to ask. "Excuse me, but...uh...why, or what...about that
string?"
"Oh, yeah" he began in a quieter tone. "Not many people are that
observant. That same efficiency group found we could save time
in the Men's room, too."
"How's that?"
"You see, by tying a string to the end of our, eh, selves, we can
pull it out at the urinals literally hands-free and thereby
eliminate the need to wash our hands, cutting time spent in the
restroom by over 93%!"
"Oh, that makes sense," I said, but then thinking thru the
process, I asked "Hey, wait-a-minute. If the string helps you
pull it out, how do you get it back in?"
"Well," he whispered, "I don't know about the other guys; but I
use my spoon.
#4
Three women die together in an accident and go to heaven. When they get
there, St. Peter says,
"We only have one rule here in heaven ... don't step on the ducks."
So they enter heaven, and sure enough, there are ducks all over the
place. It is almost impossible not to step on a duck, and although they
try their best to avoid them, the first woman accidentally steps on one.
Along comes St. Peter with the ugliest man she ever saw. St. Peter
chains them together and says
"Your punishment for stepping on a duck is! ... to spend eternity
chained to this ugly man!"
The next day, the second woman steps accidentally on a duck, and along
comes St. Peter, who doesn't miss a thing, and with him is another
extremely ugly man. He chains them together with the same admonishment
as for the first woman.
The third woman has observed all this and, not wanting to be chained for
all eternity to an ugly man, is very, VERY careful where she steps. She
manages to go months without stepping on any ducks, but one day St.
Peter comes up to her with the most handsome man she has ever laid eyes
on. Very tall, long eyelashes, muscular, and thin. St. Peter chains them
together without saying a word. The woman remarks,
"I wonder what I did to deserve being chained to you for all of
eternity?"
The guy says,
"I don't know about you, but I stepped on a duck!"
#5
A man wanted to prolong his sexual experiences so he went to see a
doctor about it. The doc told him that masturbating before sex often
helped men last longer during the act The man decided, "What the hell,
I'll try it," He spent the rest of the day thinking about where to do
it. He couldn't do it in his office. He thought about the restroom, but
that was too open. He considered an alley, but figured that was too
unsafe. Finally, he realized his solution.
On his way home, he pulled his truck over on the side of the highway. He
got out and crawled underneath as if he was examining the truck.
Satisfied with the privacy, he undid his pants and started to
masturbate. He closed his eyes and thought of his lover. As he grew
closer to orgasm, he felt a quick tug at the bottom of his pants. Not
wanting to lose his mental fantasy or the orgasm, he kept his eyes shut
and replied, "What?"
He heard, "This is the police. What's going on down there?"
The man replied, "I'm checking out the rear axle, it's busted." Back
came the reply, "Well, you might as well check your brakes too while
you're down there, because your truck rolled down the hill 5 minutes
ago."
#6
Subject: zen
In Japan, they are considering replacing the impersonal and unhelpful
Microsoft Error messages with Haiku poetry messages.
Haiku poetry has strict construction rules.
Each poem has only three lines, 17 syllables: five syllables in the
first line, seven in the second, five in the third.
Haiku is used to communicate a timeless message often achieving a
wistful, yearning and powerful insight through
extreme brevity -- the essence of Zen:
Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.
-------------------------------------------------------
Your file was so big.
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.
------------------------------------------
The Website you seek
Cannot be located, but
Countless more exist.
-------------------------------------------
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.
---------------------------------------------
Program aborting:
Close all that you have worked on.
You ask far too much.
---------------------------------------------
Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.
--------------------------------------------------
Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.
--------------------------------------------------
First snow, then silence.
This thousand-dollar screen dies
So beautifully.
--------------------------------------------------
With searching comes loss
And the presence of absence:
"My Novel" not found.
---------------------------------------------------
The Tao that is seen
Is not the true Tao-until
You bring fresh toner.
-------------------------------------------------
Stay the patient course.
Of little worth is your ire.
The network is down.
--------------------------------------------------
A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.
--------------------------------------------------
Three things are certain:
Death, taxes and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.
-------------------------------------------------
You step in the stream,
But the water has moved on.
This page is not here.
--------------------------------------------------
Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.
-------------------------------------------------
Having been erased,
The document you're seeking
Must now be retyped.
#7 And one of my personal fav's! :lol:
Shooting Yourself in the Foot
or
How to Determine Which Programming Language You're Using
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The proliferation of modern programming languages which seem to have stolen
countless features from each other sometimes makes it difficult to remember
which language you're using. This guide is offered as a public service to
help programmers in such dilemmas.
C
You shoot yourself in the foot.
C++
You accidently create a dozen instances of yourself and shoot them all
in the foot. Providing emergency medical care 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."
Objective-C (NeXT)
You write a protocol for shooting yourself in the foot so that all
people can get shot in their feet.
Ada
If you are dumb enough to actually use this language, the United States
Department of Defense will kidnap you, stand you up in front of a
firing squad, and tell the soldiers, "Shoot at his feet."
or
After correctly packaging 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 that your foot is of the wrong type.
Algol
You shoot yourself in the foot with a musket. The musket is
esthetically fascinating, and the wound baffles the adolescent medic in
the emergency room.
Pascal
The compiler won't let you shoot yourself in the foot.
APL
You hear a gunshot, and there's a hole in your foot, but you don't
remember enough linear algebra to understand what happened.
or
You shoot yourself in the foot, then spend all day figuring out how to
do it fewer characters.
Assembly
You crash the OS and overwrite the root disk. The system administrator
arrives and shoots you in the foot. After a moment of contemplation,
the administrator shoots himself in the foot and then hops around the
room rabidly shooting at everyone in sight.
or
You try to shoot yourself in the foot only to discover you must first
reinvent the gun, the bullet, and your foot.
BASIC
Shoot self in foot with water pistol. On big 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 so much fun doing it that you won't care.
COBOL
USEing a COLT45 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 retied.
DBase
You squeeze the trigger, but the bullet moves so slowly that by the
time your foot feels the pain you've forgotten why you shot yourself
anyway.
DBase IV version 1.0
You pull the trigger, but it turns out that the gun was a
poorly-designed grenade and the whole building blows up.
Forth
yourself foot shoot.
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 anyway because you have no exception- processing ability.
Modula/2
After realizing that you can't actually accomplish anything in the
language, you shoot yourself in the head.
sh, csh, etc.
You can't remember the syntax for anything, so you spend five hours
reading man pages before giving up. You then shoot the computer and
switch to C.
Smalltalk
You spend so much time playing with the graphics and windowing system
that your boss shoots you in the foot, takes away your workstation, and
makes you develop in COBOL on a character terminal.
perl
You read your entire body into a small target and match everything that
resembles feet, replacing them with shot ones. It's possible to do this
with a single compact handmade gun, of which you can barely figure out
were to put the bullets by the time you finish building it.
PL/I
You consume all available system resources, including all the offline
bullets. The DataProcessing&Payroll Department doubles its size,
triples its budget, acquires four new mainframes, and drops the
original one on your foot.
Prolog
You attempt to shoot yourself in the foot, but the bullet, failing to
find its mark, backtracks to the gun which then explodes in your face.
or
You tell your program you want to be shot in the foot. The program
figures out how to do it, but the syntax doesn't allow it to explain.
SNOBOL
You grab your foot with your hand, then rewrite your hand to be a
bullet. The act of shooting the original foot then changes your
hand/bullet into yet another foot (a left foot).
or
If you succeed, shoot yourself in the left foot. If you fail, shoot
yourself in the right 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...
Scheme
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...
...but none of the other appendages are aware of this happening.
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 disks instead.
Revelation
You'll be able to shoot yourself in the foot just as soon as you figure
out what all these bullets are for.
English
You put your foot in your mouth, then bite it off.
CLIPPER
You grab a bullet, get ready to insert it in the gun so that ou can
shoot yourself in the foot, and discover that the gun that the bullet
fits has not yet been built, but should be arriving in the mail
_REAL_SOON_NOW_.
SQL
You cut your foot off, send it out to a service bureau and when it
returns, it has a hole in it, but will no longer fit the attachment at
the end of your leg.
370 JCL
You send your foot down to MIS with a 4000-page document explaining how
you want it to be shot. Three years later, your foot comes back
deep-fried.
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.
HyperTalk
Put the first bullet of the gun into foot left of leg of you. Answer
the result.
Motif
You spend days writing a UIL description of your foot, the trajectory,
the bullet, and the intricate scrollwork on the ivory handles of the
gun. When you finally get around to pulling the trigger, the gun jams.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hans Maurer, 1994-10-17, 1994-10-27
Anke Bodzin, 1996-02-22, 1997-12-08