Programming language

[Terry Sare]

--> NOT subject to the frustrations of the VERY regimented structure of 
--> the other high level languages;  but, much of that structure is
--> available should you desire it.
[snip]
->Just like a mechanic has more than one wrench, a programmer should be
->able to handle more than one language.  In many cases, the language 
->itself is secondary to the specific *implementation* of the language, 
 
I have used various languages over the years and I have to agree with Dave, 
it is a matter of best fit for the project than which language is better. I 
prefer C but will use assembly, basic, etc. if that is a better fit.

Little programming humor 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                            Instructions for

                     "Shooting Yourself in the Foot"

                      in various computer languages
                         and systems/interfaces
============================================================================
C:  You shoot yourself in the foot.

C++:  You accidentally create a dozen instances of yourself and shoot them
  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; then you read in the next foot and repeat. If you run out of bullets,
  you continue anyway because you have no exception-handling routine.

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

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 youshoot
  yourself in the appendage which holds...

COBOL:  USEing a COLT 45 HANDGUN, AIM gun at LEG.Foot, THEN place
  ARM.HAND.FINGER on HANDGUN.TRIGGER and SQUEEZE. THEN return HANGUN to
  HOLSTER. CHECK whether shoelace needs to be retied.

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

Virtual BASIC:  You'll shoot yourself in the foot, but you'll have so much
  fun doing it that you won't care.

FORTH:  Foot in yourself shoot.

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

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

HyperTalk Put the first bullet of the gun into foot left of leg of you.
  Answer the result.

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 foot, your users can, too.

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.

Apple System 7: Double click the gun icon and a window giving a selection
  for guns, target areas, plus ballon help with medical remedies, and
  assorted sound effects. Click shoot button and small bomb appears with note
  "Error of type 1 has occurred."

DOS (all versions): You finally found the gun, but can't locate the file
  with the foot for the life of you.

  -------- (Additional languages/interfaces found later) ---------

Ada:  If you are dumb enough to actually use this language, the United
  States Department of Defense will kidnap you, stand you up in front of a
  firing squad, and tell the soldiers, "Shoot at his feet."

Algol:  You shoot yourself in the foot with a musket. The musket is
  aesthetically fascinating, and the wound baffles the adolescent medic in
  the emergency room.

APL (alternate):  You hear a gunshot, and there's a hole in your foot, but
  you don't remember enough linear algebra to understand what happened.

Assembly: You crash the OS and overwrite the root disk. The system
  administrator arrives and shoots you in the foot. After a moment of
  contemplation, the administrator shoots himself in the foot and then hops
  around the room rabidly shooting at everyone in sight.

DBase:  You squeeze the trigger, but the bullet moves so slowly that by the
  time your foot feels the pain you've forgotten why you shot yourself
  anyway.

DBase IV version 1.0:   You pull the trigger, but it turns out that the gun
  was a poorly-designed grenade and the whole building blows up.

sh, csh, etc.:  You can't remember the syntax for anything, so you spend
  five hours reading man pages before giving up. You then shoot the computer
  and switch to C.

Smalltalk:  You spend so much time playing with the graphics and windowing
  system that your boss shoots you in the foot, takes away your workstation,
  and makes you develop in COBOL on a character terminal.

PL/I: You consume all available system resources, including all the offline
  bullets. The DataProcessing&Payroll Department doubles its size, triples
  its budget, acquires four new mainframes, and drops the original one on
  your foot.

Prolog: You attempt to shoot yourself in the foot, but the bullet, failing
  to find its mark, backtracks to the gun which then explodes in your face.

SNOBOL: You grab your foot with your hand, then rewrite your hand to be a
  bullet. The act of shooting the original foot then changes your hand/bullet
  into yet another foot (a left foot).

scheme: 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...    ...but none of the other
  appendages are aware of this happening.

English:  You put your foot in your mouth, then bite it off.

CLIPPER:  You grab a bullet, get ready to insert it in the gun so that you
  can shoot yourself in the foot, and discover that the gun that the bullet
  fits has not yet been built, but should be arriving in the mail
  _REAL_SOON_NOW_.

SQL:  You cut your foot off, send it out to a service bureau and when it
  returns, it has a hole in it, but will no longer fit the attachment at the
  end of your leg.