New updates needed for an old computer language humor piece

[Ric Werme]

The following wandered into my mail box for the first time in a year
or two.  Since I've been learning a bit of Python this year, it seems
to me an update is needed.

For Logo, perhaps: Draw a foot, draw a gun, but the bullet comes out
the handle and misses the foot altogether.

	-Ric Werme

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THE PROGRAMMER'S QUICK GUIDE TO THE LANGUAGES

The proliferation of modern programming languages (all of which seem to
have stolen countless features from one another) sometimes makes it
difficult to remember what language you're currently using. This handy
reference is offered as a public service to help programmers who find
themselves in such a dilemma.


TASK: Shoot yourself in the foot.

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 with the attempts to shoot yourself anyways because
you have no exception-handling capability.

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

Ada: After correctly packing your foot, you attempt to concurrently load
the gun, pull the trigger, scream, and shoot yourself in the foot. When
you try, however, you discover you can't because your foot is of the
wrong type.

COBOL: Using a COLT 45 HANDGUN, AIM gun at LEG.FOOT, THEN place
ARM.HAND.FINGER on HANDGUN.TRIGGER and
SQUEEZE. THEN return HANDGUN to HOLSTER. CHECK whether shoelace needs to
be re-tied.

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 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...

FORTH: Foot in yourself shoot.

Prolog: You tell your program that you want to be shot in the foot. The
program figures out how to do it, but the syntax doesn't permit it to
explain it to you.

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

Visual Basic: You'll really only appear to have shot yourself in the
foot, but you'll have had so much fun doing it that you won't care.

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

Motif: You spend days writing a UIL description of your foot, the bullet,
its trajectory, and the intricate scrollwork on the ivory handles of the
gun. When you finally get around to pulling the trigger, the gun jams.

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

SNOBOL: If you succeed, shoot yourself in the left foot. If you fail,
shoot yourself in the right foot.

Unix:


 % ls
 foot.c foot.h foot.o toe.c toe.o
 % rm * .o
 rm:.o no such file or directory
 % ls
 %

Concurrent Euclid: You shoot yourself in somebody else's foot.

370 JCL: You send your foot down to MIS and include a 400-page document
explaining exactly how you want it to be shot. Three years later,
your foot comes back deep-fried.

Paradox: Not only can you shoot yourself in the foot, your users can, too.

Access: You try to point the gun at your foot, but it shoots holes in all
your Borland distribution diskettes instead.

Revelation: You're sure you're going to be able to shoot yourself in the
foot, just as soon as you figure out what all these nifty little
bullet-thingies are for.

Assembler: You try to shoot yourself in the foot, only to discover you
must first invent the gun, the bullet, the trigger, and your foot.

Modula2: After realizing that you can't actually accomplish anything in
this language, you shoot yourself in the head.

--
"When we allow fundamental freedoms to be sacrificed in the name of real or
perceived emergency, we invariably regret it.   -- Thurgood Marshall
   Ric Werme                            | werme at nospam.mediaone.net
   http://people.ne.mediaone.net/werme  |       ^^^^^^^ delete