Blog - Rajiv Sharma

Are Computers Men or Women?

Rajiv Sharma — Mon, 07 May 2007 15:15:04 GMT

A language teacher was explaining to her class that in French, nouns unlike their English counterparts, are grammatically designated as masculine or feminine.

"House" in French, is feminine -"la maison," "Pencil" in French, is masculine "le crayon."

One puzzled student asked, "What gender is computer?" The teacher did not know, and the word was not in her French dictionary.

So for fun she split the class into two groups appropriately enough, by gender and asked them to decide whether "computer" should be a masculine or a feminine noun.

Both groups were required to give four reasons for their recommendation.

The men's group decided that computer should definitely be of the feminine gender ("la computer"), because

No one but their creator understands their internal logic
The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else
Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later review
As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheque on accessories for it.

The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be masculine "le computer") because:

In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on.
They have a lot of data but still can't think for themselves
They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem
As soon as you commit to one, you realise that if you had waited a little longer you could have gotten a better model.

www.computerjokes.net

Blog Posted on: Monday, May 07, 2007 at 03:15-PM

Programming Languages are Like Cars

Rajiv Sharma — Mon, 07 May 2007 12:10:25 GMT

Assembler: A formula I race car. Very fast but difficult to drive and maintain.
FORTRAN II: A Model T Ford. Once it was the king of the road.
FORTRAN IV: A Model A Ford.
FORTRAN 77: a six-cylinder Ford Fairlane with standard transmission and no seat belts.
COBOL: A delivery van. It's bulky and ugly but it does the work.
BASIC: A second-hand Rambler with a rebuilt engine and patched upholstery. Your dad bought it for you to learn to drive. You'll ditch it as soon as you can afford a new one.
PL/I: A Cadillac convertible with automatic transmission, a two-tone paint job, white-wall tires, chrome exhaust pipes, and fuzzy dice hanging in the windshield.
C++: A black Firebird, the all macho car. Comes with optional seatbelt (lint) and optional fuzz buster (escape to assembler).
ALGOL 60: An Austin Mini. Boy that's a small car.
ALGOL 68: An Aston Martin. An impressive car but not just anyone can drive it.
Pascal: A Volkswagon Beetle. It's small but sturdy. Was once popular with intellectual types.
LISP: An electric car. It's simple but slow. Seat belts are not available.
PROLOG/LUCID: Prototype concept cars.
FORTH: A go-cart.
LOGO: A kiddie's replica of a Rolls Royce. Comes with a real engine and a working horn.
APL: A double-decker bus. It takes rows and columns of passengers to the same place all at the same time but it drives only in reverse and is instrumented in Greek.
Ada: An army-green Mercedes-Benz staff car. Power steering, power brakes, and automatic transmission are standard. No other colors or options are available. If it's good enough for generals, it's good enough for you.
Java: All-terrain very slow vehicle.
& .NET (ASP & C#): Power Big Foot
www.workjoke.com

Blog Posted on: Monday, May 07, 2007 at 12:10-PM

Life Before the Computer

Rajiv Sharma — Mon, 07 May 2007 10:14:23 GMT

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!

I guess I'll stick to my pad and paper
And the memory in my head
I hear nobody's been killed in a computer crash
But when it happens they wish they were dead!

Blog Posted on: Monday, May 07, 2007 at 10:14-AM

Why Client Server Computing is like Teenage Sex

Rajiv Sharma — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 11:10:25 GMT

It is on everybody's mind all the time.
Everyone is talking about it all the time.
Everyone thinks everyone else is doing it.
Almost no one is really doing it.
The few who are doing it are:
   doing it poorly;
   sure it will be better next time;
   not practicing it safely.

Blog Posted on: Thursday, July 05, 2007 at 11:10-AM

Software Development Cycle

Rajiv Sharma — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 14:19:58 GMT

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

Blog Posted on: Thursday, July 05, 2007 at 02:19-PM

Computer Jokes

Rajiv Sharma — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 18:08:39 GMT

A project manager, a computer programmer and a computer operator are driving down the road when the car they are in gets a flat tire. The three men try to solve the problem.

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."

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A Software Engineer, a Hardware Engineer and a Departmental Manager were on their way to a meeting. They were driving down a steep mountain road when suddenly the brakes on their car failed. The car careened almost out of control down the road, bouncing off the crash barriers, until it miraculously ground to a halt scraping along the mountainside. The car's occupants, shaken but unhurt, now had a problem: they were stuck halfway down a mountain in a car with no brakes. What were they to do?

"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."

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There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies, and benchmarks.

Blog Posted on: Friday, August 24, 2007 at 06:08-PM