Programming language

[Mark]

At 12:52 PM 7/18/97 CDT, you wrote:
>
>--> 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.

GOD BLESS YOU TERRY FOR A REALLY GOOD LAUGH
IRISH>