• Management Vs Programmers
• Management Vs Programmers (2)
• Jelly Donuts
• Heaven & Hell
• Bill Gates and the Fisherman
• Engineers and Managers
• Trivial Humor
• The Genie and the Programmer
• How many to change a light bulb?

Management Vs Programmers

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 and walks away. After the programmer has gone, 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."

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Management Vs Programmers (2)

A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realises he is lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further andshouts: "Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?" The man below says: "Yes, you're in a hot air balloon, hovering 30 feet above this field."

"You must work in Information Technology" says the balloonist. "I do" replies the man. "How did you know?" "Well" says the balloonist, "everything you have told me is technically correct, but it's no use to anyone."

The man below says "You must be a manager." "I am" replies the balloonist, "but how did you know?" "Well", says the man, "you don't know where you are, or where you're going, but you expect me to be able to help. You're in the same position you were before we met, but now it's my fault."

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Jelly Donuts

Heaven's donuts are jelly donuts. The blend of texture, from the cool, sweet ooze of the jelly, mined with tiny raspberry seeds, to the firm, spongy cake, so lightly encrusted in a thin glaze of sugar, that cracks and flakes as you gingerly tear off small pieces of delight, is certainly the greatest experience a humble man can afford. I was eating a jelly donut when He first appeared in my office, smelling slightly of gunpowder. He was tall and gaunt, with deep-set eyes and crooked teeth, long, delicate fingers, and sloped shoulders. He wore a black Ozzy Osborne concert t-shirt, frayed black jeans, and dusty black high-tops, unlaced. He smiled at me in an ugly way. I put down my donut and glanced at my watch. 7:00 PM.
"You're Mike Kolesnik."
I nodded.
"You're a programmer for CyberHackers."
I nodded again. Not only was I a programmer for CyberHackers -- I was the best damn programmer this group had ever or would ever see. I suppose I should introduce myself. I am Michael Kolesnik, master programmer. I'm not just blowing smoke here either. I'm the best damn programmer to come out of MIT since code was constructed one bit at a time. I can do it all: C, LISP, assembly -- even the languages no self-respecting programmer would deign to look at. I can do it all in no time flat, with the most elegant of style. Code sprinkled with glistening semicolons and flowing rivers of indentation. Lesser programmers avert their eyes when I enter the room. "They say you're the best, and I'm here to challenge you." I sized this guy up again. He had the right shape. The pot-belly, the greasy hair, parted with precision. The fingers. And the funny smell. I told him I didn't have time. "I'll make it worth your while," he said. "I have something you might be interested in. Follow me."
I grabbed my box of donuts, and followed him down the hall and into the elevator. He pressed a button and the elevator descended into the basement. I'd never been in the basement before. For that matter, I didn't even recall that the building had a basement. Nonetheless, the elevator chimed, the doors opened, and we stepped out into a wide room that was entirely featureless. That is, except for the fog on the floor and two workstations that were set up, side by side. One of the workstations was mine. The other was a workstation like none other that I had seen before.
It was magnificent. It was matte black. More than an object, it looked like a hole in space. The monitor it sported was the biggest I had ever seen, and the keyboard was a flow of liquid lines, containing a field of keys of different sizes and shapes, packed in like cobblestones. The mouse floated above the Table, and had no wire. Next to the computer was a box with a small chute coming out of one side, and a large red button on the top. The monitor was flanked by two gigantic speakers, and I could see a sub-woofer poking up out of the fog. It hummed. It steamed. It was the most beautiful computer I had ever seen. "You approve?" said the stranger. I swallowed and said, "It is beyond description." "It's a custom job. And it's yours. If," he said, "If you can beat me in a coding contest." I looked at him incredulously. "What's in it for you?" "I will have defeated the greatest coder in the world, and thus, I can claim that title. AND, I get to keep your immortal soul." He smiled the ugly smile again. Here was a dilemma. I was dealing with the Devil. There was no doubt about that. And he was no doubt very good. I am somewhat attached to my soul, but oh, the prizes. The glory. I can easily claim to be the best coder in the company, in the Bay Area, probably on the whole planet, but if I pulled this off, I will have shown myself to be the best coder in this entire theology! Vanity got the better part of me.
"What's the contest?" I asked.
I won't bore you with the details, but it was seriously ugly. Ugly in a way that makes the most arrogant of coders cringe and causes managers to pad development schedules into the next century. It had to run in any language, including the nasty chicken--scratch ones. It had to be backward compatible, all the way to the ENIAC. And it had to run on Windows... I cringed. But vanity won. I signed the forms, agreed on a deadline of midnight, and we sat down at our machines and started to code.
My watch said 8:00 PM, and I started warming up. Class definitions flew off my fingertips like shooting stars. Structures and declarations grew like perfect crystals, and I didn't even break a sweat. True to the task, I soon lost myself in an endless cycle of postulate, create, instantiate and verify. Bits grew to bytes, to K, to Megs, and finally to Gigs. By 11:00 PM it had come to that crucial point. With an hour to go, I had to put all the pieces together. It wasn't going to be easy. It was going to take all the concentration I had.
Then I hit the first bug.
At first, I wasn't sure where it was coming from, but then I spotted it. It wasn't mine. It was a bug in Windows. Even worse, it was a bug in Windows that stemmed from a timing problem with the system clock itself. I couldn't see a workaround. I was stymied. I genuflected and called Microsoft support. "Hello, and welcome to the Microsoft help line. Please enter your 64 digit user identification number, followed by your 32 digit password."
While I frantically typed number after number, trying to navigate through layer upon layer of phone menu, I heard Him pick up his phone and call a number.
"Hello, is Bill in? ... I don't care, wake him up ... Tell him it's Mr. Black. ... Hey Bill, what's shakin'? Listen, I needed to know a workaround to one of your bugs ... Yes, I know what time it is... Yes, I know ... Bill ... Bill! You remember our little deal?... That's right. Now be a dear and give me that workaround... Mm-hm ... Right ... Thank you, Bill. I'll be seeing you."
I was shocked. It was obviously pointless continuing my desperate journey through Microsoft's Help line. I needed immediate genius! I scarfed down a grape jelly donut. Sugar shock engulfed me, and my vision tunneled. I shuddered once, something clicked, and I determined the answer I needed --- I could use the clock on the sound chip to get my timings.
I dove back into the code, and was quickly integrating modules when I hit bug number two. It was even uglier than the first. In fact, it was the ugliest bug I had ever seen. It was a problem with C. With the language itself. There's no way fix a broken hammer using the same hammer.
I wracked my brains. I clenched and grunted and sweated and thought and Thought and THOUGHT, but to no avail. Over my shoulder, I could hear Him chime in, "Bugger, isn't it? I remember putting that one in back when I was working on the Unix kernel. Did you really think there was a Kernighan and Ritchie? Rearrange the letters in their names and you'll discover an interesting anagram," he said.
I ignored him and continued thinking. My mind went deeper and deeper into the problem at hand -- my senses dulled, my breathing grew shallow. My eyes rolled back and sweat beaded on my forehead. Clumsily, blindly, my hand pawed its way to the box on my desk, containing my last jelly donut. It raised slowly to my lips, and I bit.
Pounding waves of sugar induced euphoria washed through my mind. I felt my brain hum and crackle. My hands trembled, my body shuddered, and I began to type. I was a man possessed. Complex topographical math equations formed on my screen. Klien bottles and hypercubes locked neatly into place like pieces of a puzzle. Beyond my control, a complex mathematical world formed in my computer, with additional dimensions unimaginable.
I felt a small pop, and I came to. I looked at my screen. I had worked around the bug. My watch read 11:45. Frantically I continued putting all the modules into place. Glancing for a moment at my rival, I could see I had him worried. He was typing furiously. Smoke poured from his ears, and flames licked around his collar.
Then I hit the third bug.
It was not so much a bug, it was a limit. I only had 4 Gigabytes of memory, and I had used it all. There wasn't a bit left. I had compressed data to a point so fine that it was in danger of collapsing into a black hole. I was storing memory in every conceivable way, including keeping a chain of sound waves running between the speaker and the microphone. There was no memory left to be had.
Frantic, I reached into my box of donuts, and my heart sank into my stomach when I realized that I had eaten the last one. I glanced at my watch, but it was too late. I was sunk. I had done the best that I could, and I had nothing more to give.
The Devil laughed, and grinning cruelly, he reached over to the box with the chute and the button. Remember the box? Slowly, firmly, his hand pressed the red button, and a jelly donut slid down the chute and onto the table.
My jaw dropped. "What...is...that?" I asked.
He languorously chewed as he replied, "The Box of Eternal Donuts."
"The Box of Eternal Donuts!?"
"Yes," he said.
"It never runs out?"
"Never," he said.
"It's mine if I win?!?!"
"If you can win, it is entirely yours," he replied, grinning cockily.

My mind reeled. The Box of Eternal Donuts. The Box of Eternal Donuts! My eyes darted everywhere, my jaw hung slack, and my throat emitted strange animal-like noises. Anything. I would do anything to win! I just needed the smallest amount of memory. But where could I get it from? I glanced at my watch again, and a plan came into my mind. A beautiful, devious plan.
I went quickly upstairs and retrieved the emergency toolkit that we keep in the medicine cabinet. I ripped the case off my computer, and quickly scanned for the right connections. I pulled two wires, and unscrewed the back of my watch. The Devil's eyes widened and he desperately started coding again, but it was too late. I got the last of the memory I needed out of my watch, and pressed the ENTER key seconds before he did.
The watch burst into flames. Sparks flew from the disk drives and the monitor glowed and throbbed, finally melting into a puddle of glass. The computer exploded in a shower of sparks, and then there was absolute silence.
There was a pause, and both of us turned as the printer started, slowly emitting a single sheet that wafted gently into the out bin. I nonchalantly strolled over, and held up to the Devil's scowling face, a sheet imprinted with two words. "Hello World".
Nothing more needs to be told, other than, as I write this, I am sitting in front of my new computer, munching on what is undoubtedly the best jelly donut I have ever eaten...

There once was a consultant who lived her whole life without ever taking advantage of any of the people she worked for. In fact, she made sure that every job she did resulted in a win-win situation. One day while walking down the street she was tragically hit by a bus and she died. Her soul arrived up in heaven where she was met at the Pearly Gates by St. Peter himself.

"Welcome to Heaven," said St.Peter. "Before you get settled in though it seems we have a problem.You see, strangely enough, we've never once had a consultant make it this far and we're not really sure what to do with you."

"No problem, just let me in." said the consultant.

"Well, I'd like to, but I have higher orders. What we're going to do is let you have a day in Hell and a day in Heaven and then you can choose whichever one you want to spend an eternity in."

"Actually, I think I've made up my mind...I prefer to stay in Heaven"

"Sorry, we have rules..." And with that St. Peter put the consultant in an elevator and it went down-down-down to hell.

The doors opened and the consultant found herself stepping out onto the putting green of a beautiful golf course. In the distance was a country club and standing in front of her were all her friends and fellow consultants that she had worked with and they were all dressed in evening gowns and cheering for her. They ran up and kissed her on both cheeks and they talked about old times.

They played an excellent round of golf and at night went to the country club where she enjoyed an excellent steak and lobster dinner.

She met the Devil who was actually a really nice guy (kindacute) and she had a great time telling jokes and dancing. The consultant was having such a good time that before she knew it, it was time to leave.

Everybody shook her hand and waved good-bye as she got on the elevator. The elevator went up-up-up and opened back up at the Pearly Gates and found St. Peter waiting for her.

"Now it's time to spend a day in heaven."

So the consultant spent the next 24 hours lounging around on clouds and playing the harp and singing. She had a great time and before she knew it her 24 hours were up and St.Peter came and got her.

"So, you've spent a day in hell and you've spent a day in heaven. Now you must choose your eternity."

The consultant paused for a second and then replied, "Well, I never thought I'd say this, I mean, Heaven has been really great and all, but I think I had a better time in Hell."

So St. Peter escorted her to the elevator and again the consultant went down-down-down back to Hell.

When the doors of the elevator opened she found herself standing in a desolate wasteland covered in garbage and filth.

She saw her friends were dressed in rags and were picking up the arbage and putting it in sacks.

The Devil came up to her and put his arm around her.

"I don't understand," stammered the consultant, "yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and a country club and we ate lobster and we danced and had a great time. Now all there is a wasteland of garbage and all my friends look miserable."

The Devil looked at her and smiled, "That's because yesterday we were recruiting you, but today you're staff."

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Bill Gates and the Fisherman

During his trip to Hawai, Bill Gates was horrified to find a fisherman lying beside his boat, smoking his pipe.

  "Why aren't you fishing ? asked Bill Gates.
 "Because I have caught enough fish for the day".
 "Why don't you catch some more?".
 "What could I do with them?".
 "Earn more money. Then you could have a motor fixed to your boat and go into deeper waters and catch more fish. That would bring you more money. Soon you would have enough to buy nylon nets, so more fish,more money .Soon you would have enough to buy two boats even afleet of boats. Then you would go rich like me".
 "What would I do then?".
 "Then you could sit back and enjoy life".
 "What do you think I am doing now?"

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Engineers and Managers

A Software 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 Engineer, "Before we do anything, I think we should push the car back up the road and see if it happens again."

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Trivial Humor

• How do you keep a programmer in the shower all day?
  Give him a bottle of shampoo which says "lather, rinse, repeat."
• The Programmers' Cheer
  Shift to the left, shift to the right!
  Pop up, push down, byte, byte, byte!
• - "Have you heard about the object-oriented way to become wealthy?"
  - "No..."
  - "Inheritance."
  
• This text was checked by a speller that never has mistaks.

  If you can touch it and you can see it, it's REAL.
  If you can touch it but you can't see it, it's TRANSPARENT.
  If you can't touch it but you can see it, it's VIRTUAL.
  If you can't touch it and you can't see it, it's GONE.
  

Paraphrased after a famous saying by Mark Twain

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The Genie and the Programmer

A programmer was walking along the beach when he found a lamp. Upon rubbing the lamp a genie appeared who stated "I am the most powerful genie in the world. I can grant you any wish you want, but only one wish."

The programmer pulled out a map of the Mediterranean area and said "I'd like there to be a just and last peace among the people in the middle east."

The genie responded, "Gee, I don't know. Those people have been fighting since the beginning of time. I can do just about anything, but this is beyond my limits."

The programmer then said, "Well, I am a programmer and my programs have a lot of users. Please make all the users satisfied with my programs, and let them ask sensible changes"

Genie: "Uh, let me see that map again."

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How many to change a light bulb

• How many software engineers does it take to change a light bulb?

  None. "We'll document it in the manual."
  None. It's a hardware problem.
  1.000000001.
  Two. One always leaves in the middle of the project.
  Four. One to design the change, one to implement it, one to document it, and one to maintain it afterwards.
  Four, plus one senior analyst to manage the project, one technical writer to correct the spelling and grammar of the one who documented it, one light bulb librarian, a sales-force of at least five to drum up enough users who want to turn the light on, 274 users to burn out the new bulb, at which point we go to tender for another light bulb change,...
  Five. Two to write the specification program, one to screw it in, and two to explain why the project was late. The change is 90% complete. Only one, but she's not available till the year 2000.
  It's hard to say. Each time we separate the bulb into its modules to do unit testing, it stops working.
  Of course, as everyone knows, just five years ago all it took was a bunch of kids in a garage in Palo Alto to change a light bulb.

• 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 data base people does it take to change a light bulb?

  Three: One to write the light bulb removal program, one to write the light bulb insertion program, and one to act as a light bulb administrator to make sure nobody else tries to change the light bulb at the same time.

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