Conference thebay::joyoflex

    
    "I C U R YY 4 me ..." -- Tell that your instructor, perhaps she/he will 
    appreciate your modesty by an extra notch. 
    
    Greetings from Vienna-Heart-of-Europe,
    	Walter :-)
    

There's a `how many C programmers does it take...' joke going the rounds,
but I didn't understand it enough to remember the details. If I find it
I'll post it.

b

Not LEXical, much, but ...

The sequence I heard first ...

Lisp in action is like a finely choreographed ballet.
Ada in action is like a waltz of drugged elephants.
C in action is like a sword dance on a freshly waxed floor.

Others ...

BASIC is like ring-around-the-rosy in a schoolyard.
Pascal is like a spring frolic down a meandering stream.
FORTRAN is like two sumo wrestlers breakdancing.

Heard when I first learned the language many years ago:

  "C gives one all the power of assembly language,
   with all the hassles of assembly language."

Again, not lexical, but somewhat true.

    There's some "C" humor in TURRIS::VAXC as well.
    
    Some are "war-stories", there's also some humorous C code
    
    
    regards...
    ...diane

    Incidently, your suggested pun on "C shell" is, of course, already
    implemented on virtually all Unix systems, which offer a choice between
    the orignial Bourne shell (command interpreter), the C shell (which
    has C-language-like syntax), the Korn shell, and who knows how many
    others...
    
    There are tons of similar puns floating around in Unix-land (e.g., Is
    it true that Unix is a castrated version of Multics, thus "eunuch(s)"?)
    
    Doug.

    Did you hear the one about the contest to determine which programming
    language was best?  Each language group was put into a separate section
    of the contest area.  When the C contestants were finished and left the
    room, they were asked how they had produced their results so fast
    when the other groups were still laboring. They said,
    
    
    "Isn't that what you would expect from a C section"?

	Re: .7

	That one gets a B++.

    Hmmm.  I think I'd rather have a B--.
    
    I'm hoping somebody can do better.  Much better.  I'd hate to tell that
    joke in public, even for an extra grade point, and even if all the
    resulting static is local.

    Re .6
    >Is it true that Unix is a castrated version of Multics, thus "eunuch(s)"?
    
    Yes, its name was chosen exactly for that reason.
    
    Of course, now it's bigger than MULTICS was, but still castrated.
    (Relatively less so by some vendors, but still.)
    
    Incidentally, in the VAX C conference, if you do SHOW KEY HUMOR/FULL
    you'll find that some of the jokes are lexical.  However, jokes already
    posted in that conference should be disqualified for a bonus point.
    
    If you want a lexical C joke, there's always that program that is often
    run as a front-end for YACC, despite being infamous for being slow.
    
    -- Norman Diamond

    I'll go look in the VAXC conference again.

    If you like, I can give you the instructor's e-mail address, and you
    can discuss with him what jokes should be allowed or disallowed. From
    the others told so far, most of them should be disallowed. I suggested
    that one joke (which was funny but very off color) receive 2 points if
    the guy promised not to try again, and THAT received a bigger laugh for
    which I didn't get any credit.  I suppose it wasn't Ceemly.

    I told the joke in .7 and got my one point.  It's still a horrible
    joke, and I wish I'd had a better one.  Oh, well.  The things I'll do
    when it looks like for the first time ever I can get a perfect score in
    a course.

Q. How many C++ programmers does it take to change a light bulb?

A. You're still thinking procedurally.  A properly designed light bulb
object would inherit a change method from a generic light bulb class,
so all you'd have to do is send it a bulb change message.

    More precisely:
    
    A.  None.  They send the lightbulb the message, "Change yourself."
    
    ("Pure" OO fanatics who have gone overboard really do talk that way,
    so I think this wording captures the spirit much better.)

    Right.

    Over the weekend, I mailed .-2's joke (with the obvious .-1 adjustment)
    to the C instructor as penance for the horrible one I told in class. He
    told me yesterday, with a big smile, that I had now earned the point
    rather than merely satisfying the requirement.

    One of my co-workers just hobbled in on crutches, with bright clean
    white plaster all over one leg.  I wanted to write:
    
        a = (void*) b;
    
    on it but he wouldn't let me  :-(
    I guess it isn't traditional in Japan to write on these things.....

    I don't think he had a leg to stand on.

    In Orwellian terms...
    
    ... is C++ doubleplus ungood?
    
    :-)