Programming and Engineering Jokes

PROGRAMMER TERMINOLOGY
  1. A NUMBER OF DIFFERENT APPROACHES ARE BEING TRIED: We are still pissing in the wind.
  2. EXTENSIVE REPORT IS BEING PREPARED ON A FRESH APPROACH TO THE PROBLEM: We just hired three kids fresh out of college.
  3. CLOSE PROJECT COORDINATION: We know who to blame.
  4. MAJOR TECHNOLOGICAL BREAKTHROUGH: It works OK, but looks very hi-tech.
  5. CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IS DELIVERED ASSURED: We are so far behind schedule the customer is happy to get it delivered.
  6. PRELIMINARY OPERATIONAL TESTS WERE INCONCLUSIVE: The darn thing blew up when we threw the switch.
  7. TEST RESULTS WERE EXTREMELY GRATIFYING: We are so surprised that the stupid thing works.
  8. THE ENTIRE CONCEPT WILL HAVE TO BE ABANDONED: The only person who understood the thing quit.
  9. IT IS IN THE PROCESS: It is so wrapped up in red tape that the situation is about hopeless.
  10. WE WILL LOOK INTO IT: Forget it! We have enough problems for now.
  11. PLEASE NOTE AND INITIAL: Let's spread the responsibility for the screw up.
  12. GIVE US THE BENEFIT OF YOUR THINKING: We'll listen to what you have to say as long as it doesn't interfere with what we've already done.
  13. GIVE US YOUR INTERPRETATION: I can't wait to hear this bull!
  14. SEE ME or LET'S DISCUSS: Come into my office, I'm lonely.
  15. ALL NEW: Code not interchangeable with the previous design.
  16. YEARS OF DEVELOPMENT: It finally worked!
  17. LOW MAINTENANCE: Impossible to fix if broken. What if there were no hypothetical situations?
A doctor, a lawyer and a computer engineer were discussing the relative merits of wives and mistresses. The doctor said, "It would be better to have a wife than a mistress because it's a proven fact that married men live longer than unmarried men." The lawyer replied, "no, it would be better to have just a mistress. If you are married, you are likely to have a divorce that will wipe out everything you own." Then the computer engineer spoke: "I think it would be better to have both, because while the wife thought you were with the mistress and the mistress thought you are with the wife, you could go write some code."
TOP TEN REASONS TO DATE AN ENGINEER:
10. The World Does Revolve Around Us ... We Pick the Coordinate System
9. Find Out What Those Other Buttons on Your Calculator Do
8. We Know How to Handle "Stress" and "Strain" in Relationships
7. Parents Will Approve
6. Help with Your Math Homework
5. Can Calculate Head Pressure
4. Looks Good on a Resume
3. Free Body Diagrams
2. High Starting Salary
1. Lifetime supply of "Dilbert" calendars

TOP TEN REASONS NOT TO DATE AN ENGINEER:
10. T-Shirt and Jeans Are Formal Dress
9. Considers "Posting to the Internet" a Social Life
8. Flames Like a Monster, Speaks Like a Pussy Cat
7. Works from 6:30am to 7:30pm Daily, No Morning Kisses, and No Evening Walks
6. No Matter How Hard You Cry and How Loud You Yell, Just Sits There Calmly Discussing Your Emotion in Terms of Mathematical Logic
5. Listens to Everything from Bach to Prince, Hates Classic Rock.
4. Twinkie and a Jolt 6-Pack Is a Seven Course Meal
3. Talks in Acronyms (TIA)
2. Can't Leave that Pencil Off Ear for One Minute
1. Will File for Divorce If You Call in the Middle of Debugging their C code
Engineering is so trendy these days that everybody wants to be one. The word "engineer" is greatly overused. If there's somebody in your life who you think is trying to pass as an engineer, give him this test to discern the truth.

ENGINEER IDENTIFICATION TEST


You walk into a room and notice that a picture is hanging crooked. You...
A.Straighten it.
B.Ignore it.
C.Buy a CAD system and spend the next six months designing a solar-powered, self-adjusting picture frame while often stating aloud your belief that the inventor of the nail was a total moron.
The correct answer is "C" but partial credit can be given to anybody who writes "It depends" in the margin of the test or simply blames the whole stupid thing on "Marketing."

SOCIAL SKILLS

Engineers have different objectives when it comes to social interaction.

"Normal" people expect to accomplish several unrealistic things from social interaction:
In contrast to "normal" people, engineers have rational objectives for social interactions:
FASCINATION WITH GADGETS

To the engineer, all matter in the universe can be placed into one of two categories:
  1. things that need to be fixed, and
  2. things that will need to be fixed after you've had a few minutes to play with them.
Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems. Normal people don't understand this concept; they believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.

No engineer looks at a television remote control without wondering what it would take to turn it into a stun gun. No engineer can take a shower without wondering if some sort of Teflon coating would make showering unnecessary. To the engineer, the world is a toy box full of sub-optimized and feature-poor toys.

FASHION AND APPEARANCE

Clothes are the lowest priority for an engineer, assuming the basic thresholds for temperature and decency have been satisfied. If no appendages are freezing or sticking together, and if no genitalia or mammary glands are swinging around in plain view, then the objective of clothing has been met. Anything else is a waste.

DATING AND SOCIAL LIFE

Dating is never easy for engineers. A normal person will employ various indirect and duplicitous methods to create a false impression of attractiveness. Engineers are incapable of placing appearance above function.

Fortunately, engineers have an ace in the hole. They are widely recognized as superior marriage material: intelligent, dependable, employed, honest, and handy around the house. While it's true that many normal people would prefer not to date an engineer, most normal people harbor an intense desire to mate with them, thus producing engineerlike children who will have high-paying jobs long before losing their virginity.

Male engineers reach their peak of sexual attractiveness later than normal men, becoming irresistible erotic dynamos in their mid thirties to late forties. Just look at these examples of sexually irresistible men in technical professions:
Female engineers become irresistible at the age of consent and remain that way until about thirty minutes after their clinical death. Longer if it's a warm day.

HONESTY

Engineers are always honest in matters of technology and human relationships. That's why it's a good idea to keep engineers away from customers, romantic interests, and other people who can't handle the truth.

Engineers sometimes bend the truth to avoid work. They say things that sound like lies but technically are not because nobody could be expected to believe them. The complete list of engineer lies is listed below.
FRUGALITY

Engineers are notoriously frugal. This is not because of cheapness or mean spirit; it is simply because every spending situation is simply a problem in optimization, that is, "How can I escape this situation while retaining the greatest amount of cash?"

POWERS OF CONCENTRATION

If there is one trait that best defines an engineer it is the ability to concentrate on one subject to the complete exclusion of everything else in the environment. This sometimes causes engineers to be pronounced dead prematurely. Some funeral homes in high-tech areas have started checking resumes before processing the bodies. Anybody with a degree in electrical engineering or experience in computer programming is propped up in the lounge for a few days just to see if he or she snaps out of it.

RISK

Engineers hate risk. They try to eliminate it whenever they can. This is understandable, given that when an engineer makes one little mistake the media will treat it like it's a big deal or something.

EXAMPLES OF BAD PRESS FOR ENGINEERS
The risk/reward calculation for engineers looks something like this:
RISK:Public humiliation and the death of thousands of innocent people.
REWARD:A certificate of appreciation in a handsome plastic frame.
Being practical people, engineers evaluate this balance of risks and rewards and decide that risk is not a good thing. The best way to avoid risk is by advising that any activity is technically impossible for reasons that are far too complicated to explain.

If that approach is not sufficient to halt the project, then the engineer will fall back to a second line of defense: "It's technically possible but it will cost too much."

EGO

Ego-wise, two things are important to engineers:
The fastest way to get an engineer to solve a problem is to declare that the problem is unsolvable. No engineer can walk away from an unsolvable problem until it's solved. No illness or distraction is sufficient to get the engineer off the case. These types of challenges quickly become personal -- a battle between the engineer and the laws of nature.

Engineers will go without food and hygiene for days to solve a problem. (Other times just because they forgot.) And when they succeed in solving the problem they will experience an ego rush that is better than sex -- and I'm including the kind of sex where other people are involved.

Nothing is more threatening to the engineer than the suggestion that somebody has more technical skill. Normal people sometimes use that knowledge as a lever to extract more work from the engineer. When an engineer says that something can't be done (a code phrase that means it's not fun to do), some clever normal people have learned to glance at the engineer with a look of compassion and pity and say something along these lines: "I'll ask Bob to figure it out. He knows how to solve difficult technical problems."

At that point it is a good idea for the normal person to not stand between the engineer and the problem. The engineer will set upon the problem like a starved Chihuahua on a pork chop.
At a recent computer software engineering course in the US, the participants were given an awkward question to answer. "If you had just boarded an airliner and discovered that your company had been responsible for the flight control software how many of you would disembark immediately?"

Among the ensuing forest of raised hands only one man sat motionless. When asked what he would do, he replied that he would be quite content to stay onboard. With his company's software, he said, the plane was unlikely to even taxi as far as the runway, let alone takeoff.
Beatles songs for the computer age

"Eleanor Rigby"

Sits at the keyboard
And waits for a line on the screen
Lives in a dream

Waits for a signal
Finding some code
That will make the machine do some more.
What is it for?

All the lonely users, where do they all come from?
All the lonely users, why does it take so long?

Guru MacKenzie
Typing the lines of a program that no one will run;
Isn't it fun?
Look at him working,
Munching some chips as he waits for the code to compile;
Where is the style?

All the lonely users, where do they all come from?
All the lonely users, why does it take so long?

Eleanor Rigby
Crashes the system and loses 6 hours of work;
What is it worth?
Guru MacKenzie
Wiping the blood off his hands as he walks from the grave;
Nothing was saved.

All the lonely users, where do they all come from?
All the lonely users, why does it take so long?


"Nowhere Man"

He's a real UNIX Man
Sitting in his UNIX LAN
Making all his UNIX .plans
For nobody

He's as wise as he can be
Programs in lex, yacc and C
UNIX Man, can you help me
At all?

UNIX Man, please listen
My printout is missin'
UNIX Man
The wo-o-o-orld is your 'at' command


"Let It Be"

When I find my code in tons of trouble,
Friends and colleagues come to me,
Speaking words of wisdom:
"Write in C."

As the deadline fast approaches,
And bugs are all that I can see,
Somewhere, someone whispers:
"Write in C."

Write in C, Write in C,
Write in C, oh, Write in C.
LOGO's dead and buried,
Write in C.

I used to write a lot of FORTRAN,
For science it worked flawlessly.
Try using it for graphics!
Write in C.

If you've just spent nearly 30 hours
Debugging some assembly,
Soon you will be glad to
Write in C.

Write in C, Write in C,
Write in C, yeah, Write in C.
Only wimps use BASIC.
Write in C.

Write in C, Write in C
Write in C, oh, Write in C.
Pascal won't quite cut it.
Write in C.

Write in C, Write in C,
Write in C, yeah, Write in C.
Don't even mention COBOL.
Write in C.
"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
- Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949


"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943


"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year."
- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957


"But what ... is it good for?"
- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968 commenting on the microchip.


"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977
There are four engineers travelling in a car; a mechanical engineer, a chemical engineer, an electrical engineer and a computer engineer. The car breaks down.

"Sounds to me as if the pistons have seized. We'll have to strip down the engine before we can get the car working again", says the mechanical engineer.

"Well", says the chemical engineer, "it sounded to me as if the fuel might be contaminated. I think we should clear out the fuel system."

"I thought it might be an grounding problem", says the electrical engineer, "or maybe a faulty plug lead."

They all turn to the computer engineer who has said nothing and say: "Well, what do you think?"

"Ummm - perhaps if we all get out of the car and get back in again?"
In a recent issue of Meat & Poultry magazine, editors quoted from Feathers, the publication of the California Poultry Industry Federation, telling the following story. It seems the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has a unique device for testing the strength of windshields on airplanes.

The device is a gun that launches dead chicken at a plane's windshield at approximately the speed the plane flies.

The theory is that if the windshield doesn't crack from the carcass impact, it'll survive a real collision with a bird during flight.

It seems the British were very interested in this and wanted to test a windshield on a brand new, speedy locomotive they're developing.

They borrowed the FAA's chicken launcher, loaded the chicken and fired. The ballistic chicken shattered the windshield, went through the engineer's chair, broke an instrument panel and embedded itself in the back wall of the engine cab. The British were stunned and asked the FAA to recheck the test to see if everything was done correctly.

The FAA reviewed the test thoroughly and had one recommendation:
"Use a thawed chicken."
If operating systems were beers

DOS Beer:

Requires you to use your own can opener, and requires you to read the directions carefully before opening the can. Originally only came in an 8-oz. can, but now comes in a 16-oz. can. However, the can is divided into 8 compartments of 2 oz. each, which have to be accessed separately. Soon to be discontinued, although a lot of people are going to keep drinking it after it's no longer available.

Mac Beer:

At first, came only a 16-oz. can, but now comes in a 32-oz. can. Considered by many to be a "light" beer. All the cans look identical. When you take one from the fridge, it opens itself. The ingredients list is not on the can. If you call to ask about the ingredients, you are told that "you don't need to know." A notice on the side reminds you to drag your empties to the trashcan.

Windows 3.1 Beer:

The world's most popular. Comes in a 16-oz. can that looks a lot like Mac Beer's. Requires that you already own a DOS Beer. Claims that it allows you to drink several DOS Beers simultaneously, but in reality you can only drink a few of them, very slowly, especially slowly if you are drinking the Windows Beer at the same time. Sometimes, for apparently no reason, a can of Windows Beer will explode when you open it.

OS/2 Beer:

Comes in a 32-oz can. Does allow you to drink several DOS beers simultaneously. Allows you to drink Windows 3.1 Beer simultaneously too, but somewhat slower. Advertises that its cans won't explode when you open them, even if you shake them up. You never really see anyone drinking OS/2 Beer, but the manufacturer (International Beer Manufacturing) claims that 9 million six-packs have been sold.

Windows 95 Beer:

New to the market, and a lot of people have taste-tested it and claim it's wonderful. The can looks a lot like Mac Beer's can, but tastes more like Windows 3.1 Beer. It comes in 32-oz. cans, but when you look inside, the cans only have 16 oz. of beer in them. Most people will probably keep drinking Windows 3.1 Beer until their friends try Windows 95 Beer and say they like it. The ingredients list, when you look at the small print, has some of the same ingredients that come in DOS beer, even though the manufacturer claims that this is an entirely new brew.

Windows NT Beer:

Comes in 32-oz. cans, but you can only buy it by the truckload. This causes most people to have to go out and buy bigger refrigerators. The can looks just like Windows 3.1 Beer's, but the company promises to change the can to look just like Windows 95 Beer's - after Windows 95 beer starts shipping. Touted as an "industrial strength" beer, and suggested only for use in bars.

Unix Beer:

Comes in several different brands, in cans ranging from 8 oz. to 64 oz. Drinkers of Unix Beer display fierce brand loyalty, even though they claim that all the different brands taste almost identical. Sometimes the pop-tops break off when you try to open them, so you have to have your own can opener around for those occasions, in which case you either need a complete set of instructions or a friend who has been drinking Unix Beer for several years.

AmigaDOS Beer:

The company has gone out of business, but their recipe has been picked up by some weird German company, so now this beer will be an import. This beer never really sold very well because the original manufacturer didn't understand marketing. Like Unix Beer, AmigaDOS Beer fans are an extremely loyal and loud group. It originally came in a 16-oz. can, but now comes in 32-oz. cans too. When this can was originally introduced, it appeared flashy and colourful, but the design hasn't changed much over the years, so it appears dated now. Critics of this beer claim that it is only meant for watching TV anyway.

VMS Beer:

Requires minimal user interaction, except for popping the top and sipping. However cans have been known on occasion to explode, or contain extremely un-beer-like contents. Best drunk in high pressure development environments. When you call the manufacturer for the list of ingredients, you're told that is proprietary and referred to an unknown listing in the manuals published by the FDA. Rumours are that this was once listed in the Physicians' Desk Reference as a tranquilliser, but no one can claim to have actually seen it.
There was this male engineer, on a cruise ship in the Caribbean for the first time. It was wonderful, the experience of his life. He was being waited on hand an foot. But, it did not last. A Hurricane came up unexpectedly. The ship went down almost instantly.

The man found himself, he knew not how, swept up on the shore of an island. There was nothing else anywhere to be seen. No person, no supplies, nothing. The man looked around. There were some bananas and coconuts, but that was it. He was desperate, and forlorn, but decided to make the best of it. So for the next four months he ate bananas, drank coconut juice and mostly looked to the sea mightily for a ship to come to his rescue.

One day, as he was lying on the beach stroking his beard and looking for a ship, he spotted movement out of the corner of his eye. Could it be true, was it a ship? No, from around the corner of the island came this rowboat. In it was the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen, or at least seen in 4 months. She was tall, tanned, and her blond hair flowing in the sea breeze gave her an almost ethereal quality. She spotted him also as he was waving and yelling and screaming to get her attention. She rowed her boat towards him.

In disbelief, he asked, "Where did you come from? How did you get here"?

She said, "I rowed from the other side of the island. I landed on this island when my cruise ship sank" "Amazing", he said, "I didn't know anyone else had survived. How many of you are there? Where, did you get the rowboat? You must have been really lucky to have a rowboat wash-up with you?"

"It is only me", she said, "and the rowboat didn't wash up, nothing else did."

"Well then", said the man, "how did you get the rowboat?" "I made the rowboat out of raw material that I found on the island," replied the woman. "The oars were whittled from Gum tree branches, I wove the bottom from Palm branches, and the sides and stern came from a Eucalyptus tree".

"But, but," asked the man, "what about tools and hardware, how did you do that?"

"Oh, no problem," replied the woman, "on the south side of the island there is a very unusual strata of alluvial rock exposed. I found that If I fired it to a certain temperature in my kiln, it melted into forgeable ductile iron. I used that for tools, and used the tools to make the hardware. But, enough of that," she said. "Where do you live?"

At last the man was forced to confess that he had been sleeping on the beach. "Well, let's row over to my place," she said. So they both got into the rowboat and left for her side of island.

The woman easily rowed them around to a wharf that led to the approach to her place. She tied up the rowboat with a beautifully woven hemp rope. They walked up a stone walk and around a Palm tree, there stood an exquisite bungalow painted in blue and white.

"It's not much," she said, "but I call it home. Sit down please, would you like to have a drink?"

"No, said the man, one more coconut juice and I will puke."

"It won't be coconut juice," the woman replied, "I have a still, how about a Pina Colada?" Trying to hide his continued amazement, the man accepted, and they sat down on her couch to talk.

After a while, and they had exchanged their stories, the woman asked, "Tell me, have you always had a beard?" "No", the man replied, "I was clean shaven all of my life, and even on the cruise ship". "Well if you would like to shave, there is a man's razor upstairs in the cabinet in the bathroom." So, the man, no longer questioning anything, went upstairs to the bath room. There in the cabinet was a razor made from a bone handle, two shells honed to a hollow ground edge were fastened on to its end inside of a swivel mechanism. The man shaved, showered and went back down stairs..

"You look great," said the woman, "I think I will go up and slip into something more comfortable." So she did.

And, the man continued to sip his Pina Colada. After a short time, the woman returned wearing fig leafs strategically positioned and smelling faintly of gardenia.

"Tell me," she asked, "we have both been out here for a very long time with no companionship. You know what I mean. Have you been lonely, is there anything that you really miss? Something that all men and woman need. Something that it would be really nice to have right now."

"Yes there is," the man replied, as he moved closer to the woman while fixing a winsome gaze upon her, "Tell me ... Do you happen to have an Internet connection?"
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