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 guide is offered as a public service to help programmers who find themselves in such dilemmas.

• C
  You shoot yourself in the foot.

• C++
  You accidentally create a dozen instances of yourself and shootthem 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, than you read in the next foot and repeat. If you run out of bullets, you continue anyway because you have noexception-handling ability.

• Modula-2
  After realizing that you can't actually accomplish anything in this language, you shoot yourself in the head.

• 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 retied.

• 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 ...

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

• FORTH
  Foot in yourself shoot.

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

• Pascal
  The compiler won't let you shoot yourself in the foot.

• SNOBOL
  If you succeed, shoot yourself in the left foot.
  If you fail, shoot yourself in the right foot.

• Concurrent Euclid
  You shoot yourself in somebody else's foot.

• Hyper Talk
  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.

• Unix
  % ls foot.c foot.h foot.o toe.c toe.o % rm *.o rm:.o: No such file or directory % ls %

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

• Revelation
  You'll be able to shoot yourself in the foot just as soon as you figure out what all these bullets are for.

• Visual Basic
  You'll shoot yourself in the foot, but you'll have so much fun doing it that you won't care.

• Prolog
  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.

• 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.

• Ada
  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.

• Assembly
  You try to shoot yourself in the foot only to discover you must first reinvent the gun, the bullet, and your foot.

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