And God said - Let the Data be; And so it happened. And God said - Let the Data go to their proper places. And he created floppy disks and hard disks and compact disks.

And God said - Let the computers be, so there would be a place to put floppy disks and hard disks and compact disks. Thus God created computers and called them hardware.

And there was no Software yet. But God created programs; small and big ... And told them - Go and multiply yourselves and fill all the Memory.

And God said - I will create the Programmer; And the Programmer will make new programs and govern over the computers and programs and Data.

And God created the Programmer; and put him at Data Center;

And God showed the Programmer the Catalog Tree and said You can use all the volumes and subvolumes but DO NOT USE Windows.

And God said - It is not Good for the programmer to be alone. He took a bone from the Programmer's body and created a creature that would look up at the Programmer; and admire the Programmer; and love the things the Programmer does; And God called the creature : the User.

And the Programmer and the User were left under the naked DOS and it was Good.

But Bill was smarter than all the other creatures of God.

And Bill said to the User - Did God really tell you not to run any programs? And the User answered - God told us that we can use every program and every piece of Data but told us not to run Windows or we will die.

And Bill said to the User - How can you talk about something you did not even try. The moment you run Windows you will become equal to God. You will be able to create anything you like by a simple click of your mouse.

And the User saw that the fruits of the Windows were nicer and easier to use. And the User saw that any knowledge was useless - since Windows could replace it.

So the User installed the Windows on his computer; and said to the Programmer that it was good.

And the Programmer immediately started to look for new drivers. And God asked him - What are you looking for? And the Programmer answered - I am looking for new drivers because I can not find them in the DOS. And God said - Who told you need drivers? Did you run Windows? And the Programmer said - It was Bill who told us to.

And God said to Bill - Because of what you did you will be hated by all the creatures. And the User will always be unhappy with you. And you will always sell Windows.

And God said to the User - Because of what you did, the Windows will disappoint you and eat up all your Resources; and you will have to use lousy programs; and you will always rely on the Programmers help.

And God said to the Programmer - Because you listened to the User you will never be happy. All your programs will have errors and you will have to fix them and fix them to the end of time.

And God threw them out of the Data Center and locked the door and secured it with a password.

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."

Several years of this relentless, mind-numbing work had taken its toll on Jack. He began having anxiety dreams about the Year 2000. All he could think about was how he could avoid the year 2000 and all that came with it. Jack decided to contact a company that specialized in cryogenics. He made a deal to have himself frozen until March 15th, 2000. The next thing he would know is he'd wake up in the year 2000; after the New Year celebrations and computer debacles; after the leap day. Nothing else to worry about except getting on with his life.

He was put into his cryogenic receptacle, the technicians set the revive date, he was given injections to slow his heartbeat to a bare minimum, and that was that.

The next thing that Jack saw was an enormous and very modern room filled with excited people. They were all shouting "I can't believe it!" and "It's a miracle" and "He's alive!". There were cameras (unlike any he'd ever seen) and equipment that looked like it came out of a science fiction movie. Someone who was obviously a spokesperson for the group stepped forward. Jack couldn't contain his enthusiasm. "Is it over?" he asked. "Is the year 2000 already here? Are all the millennial parties and promotions and crises all over and done with?"

The spokesman explained that there had been a problem with the programming of the timer on Jack's cryogenic receptacle, it hadn't been year 2000 compliant. It was actually eight thousand years later, not the year 2000. Technology had advanced to such a degree that everyone had virtual reality interfaces which allowed them to contact anyone else on the planet. "That sounds terrific," said Jack. "But I'm curious. Why is everybody so interested in me?"

"Well," said the spokesman. "The year 10000 is just around the corner, and it says in your files that you know COBOL".

The boy replies back : "Darling, I am a programmer. We don't worry about warnings, we only worry about errors."

In C we had to code our own bugs. In C++ we can inherit them. C gives you enough rope to hang yourself. C++ also gives you the tree object to tie it to.

With C you can shoot yourself in the leg. With C++ you can reuse the bullet.

A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup and mustard.

PL/I is for programmers who can't decide whether to write in COBOL or Fortran.

Why all Pascal programmers ask to live in Atlantis?
Because it is below C level.

An application was for employment
A program was a TV show
A cursor used profanity
A keyboard was a piano!
Memory was something that you lost with age
A CD was a bank account
And if you had a 3 ½ inch floppy, You hoped nobody found out!
Compress was something you did to garbage, not something you did to a file
And if you unzipped anything in public, you'd be in jail for awhile!
Log on was adding wood to a fire
Hard drive was a long trip on the road
A mouse pad was where a mouse lived
And a backup happened to your commode!
Cut - you did with a pocket knife
Paste you did with glue
A web was a spider's home
And a virus was the flu!

The project manager said : "Let's catch a cab and in ten minutes we'll reach our destination."

The computer programmer said : "We have here the driver's guide. I can easily replace the flat tire and continue our drive."

The computer operator said : "First of all, let's turn off the engine and turn it on again. Maybe it will fix the problem."

Suddenly a Microsoft software engineer passed by and said : "Try to close all windows, get off the car, and then get in and try again."

"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."

1. Programmer produces code he believes is bug-free.
2. Product is tested. 20 bugs are found.
3. Programmer fixes 10 of the bugs and explains to the testing department that the other 10 aren't really bugs.
4. Testing department finds that five of the fixes didn't work and discovers 15 new bugs.
5. Repeat three times steps 3 and 4.

Due to marketing pressure and an extremely premature product announcement based on overly-optimistic programming schedule, the product is released.

Users find 137 new bugs. Original programmer, having cashed his royalty check, is nowhere to be found.

Newly-assembled programming team fixes almost all of the 137 bugs, but introduce 456 new ones.

Original programmer sends underpaid testing department a postcard from Fiji. Entire testing department quits.

Company is bought in a hostile takeover by competitor using profits from their latest release, which had 783 bugs.

New CEO is brought in by board of directors. He hires a programmer to redo program from scratch.

Programmer produces code he believes is bug-free ...

"That's wonderful. How about you, Amy?" Amy shyly stood up, scuffed her feet and said, "My father is a mailman." "Thank you, Amy" said the teacher. "What does your parent do, Billy?" Billy proudly stood up and announced, "My daddy plays piano in a whorehouse."

The teacher was aghast and went to Billy's house and rang the bell. Billy's father answered the door. The teacher explained what his son had said and demanded an explanation. Billy's dad said, "I'm actually a system programmer specializing in TCP/IP communication protocol on UNIX systems. How can I explain a thing like that to a seven-year-old?"

The computer bleeped for a short while, and then came back with "Your father is fishing in Michigan."

The skeptical man said triumphantly, "You see? I knew this was nonsense. My father has been dead for twenty years."

"No", replied the super computer immediately. "Your mother's husband has been dead for twenty years. Your father just landed a three pound trout."

The problem with mathematicians is that they tend to work on toy problems in order to get results.

The problem with program verifiers is that they tend to cheat at toy problems in order to get results.

CD-ROM : Consumer Device, Rendered Obsolete in Months
PCMCIA : People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms
ISDN : It Still Does Nothing
SCSI : System Can't See It
MIPS : Meaningless Indication of Processor Speed
DOS : Defunct Operating System
WINDOWS : Will Install Needless Data On Whole System
OS/2 : Obsolete Soon, Too
PnP : Plug and Pray
APPLE : Arrogance Produces Profit-Losing Entity
IBM : I Blame Microsoft
DEC : Do Expect Cuts
MICROSOFT : Most Intelligent Customers Realize Our Software Only Fools Teenagers
CA : Constant Acquisitions
COBOL : Completely Obsolete Business Oriented Language
LISP : Lots of Insipid and Stupid Parentheses
MACINTOSH : Most Applications Crash; If Not, The Operating System Hangs
AAAAA : American Association Against Acronym Abuse.
WYSIWYMGIYRRLAAGW : What You See Is What You Might Get If You're Really Really Lucky And All Goes Well.

When computing, whatever happens, behave as though you meant it to happen.

When you get to the point where you really understand your computer, it's probably obsolete.

The first place to look for information is in the section of the manual where you least expect to find it.

When the going gets tough, upgrade.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite malfunction.

He who laughs last probably made a back-up.

A complex system that does not work is invariably found to have evolved from a simpler system that worked just fine.

The number one cause of computer problems is computer solutions.

A computer program will always do what you tell it to do, but rarely what you want to do.

Drug Dealers : "The first one is free"
Software Engineers : "Download a free trial version"

Have important South-Asia connections (to help move the stuff)
Have important South-Asia connections (to help debug the code)

Strange jargon : "Stick", "Rock", "Dime bag", "E"
Strange jargon : "TCP/IP", "XML", "Java", "SQL"

Realize that there's a ton of cash in the 14- to 25-year-old market
Realize that there's a ton of cash in the 14- to 25-year-old market

Job is assisted by industry's producing newer, more potent mixes
Job is assisted by industry's producing newer, faster machines

Often seen in the company of pimps and hustlers
Often seen in the company of marketing people and venture capitalists

Their products cause unhealthy addictions.
DOOM. Quake. SimCity. Duke Nukem 3D.; Enough said.

Do your job well and you can sleep with sexy movie stars who depend on you
Damn! Damn! DAMN!

If builders built buildings the way programmers write programs, then the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization.

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.
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.

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?"

One. "We just recognized darkness, fixing it is someone else's problem."

"You're still thinking procedurally! A properly designed light bulb object would inherit a change method from a generic light bulb class!"

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.

Fifteen. Five to do it, and ten to write document number GC7500439-001, Multitasking Incadescent Source System Facility, of which 10% of the pages state only "This page intentionally left blank".

Just one, provided there's a programmer around to explain how to do it.