Python Success stories

Carl Banks pavlovevidence at gmail.com
Tue Apr 22 09:38:10 EDT 2008


On Apr 22, 6:25 am, azrael <jura.gro... at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hy guys,
> A friend of mine i a proud PERL developer which always keeps making
> jokes on python's cost.
>
> Please give me any arguments to cut him down about his commnets
> like :"keep programing i python. maybe, one day, you will be able to
> program in VisualBasic"
>
> This hurts. Please give me informations about realy famous
> aplications.


Let me tell you a little story to let you know how you should act in
situations like this.  Some of you might have heard it before.
Apologies if it's a bit long.



There was once a young man who absolutely loved clowns.  He always
dreamed of meeting a clown, and laughing at their silly antics, but he
lived in a rural small town and never got to see any.

Then one day when the circus came to town.  The young man was
unbelievably excited, he was finally going to be able to see a clown!
He camped out at the ticket booth and was the first in line to get a
ticket, because he so loved clowns that he wanted to sit right up
front.

The yound man never had a better time in his life, watching all the
clowns and their funny tricks.  Then a young talented clown came out
to work the crowd.  He went right up to the young man, who couldn't
believe his luck: a clown was doing his act with him!

The clown asked the man, "Are you front end of an ass?"

The young man said, "Um, no."

Then the clown asked the man, "Are you the rear end of an ass?"

The young man, a little confused, said, "No."

Then the clown, with nearly perfect comedic timing, said, "Then you
must be no end of an ass!"

The crowd roared with laughter, but the young man was crushed.  He
couldn't believe that the clowns he adored so much could be so mean.

He went home from the circus utterly distraught and humiliated, and
soon fell into a deep depression.  He eventually lost his job, then
his home.  He became a vagrant and spent his days living on the
streets.

The years passed by.

One day, the now old man saw that the circus was coming back to town.
And not only that, but the same clown who had humiliated him years ago
was headlining the circus.  It brought back terrible and long-
suppressed memories, which he told to a social worker at the homeless
shelter he was staying at.

The social worker felt very moved by the old man's story, and told the
old man, "You know, maybe you could overcome with your problems if you
could face that clown again and give him his comeupance."

The old man was horrified.  After the incident he had developed an
intense fear of clowns.  Yet he somehow felt the social worker was
right.  "I'd like to do that," he said, "but what if the clown
humilates me again?"

"Don't worry," said the social worker, "I have the perfect retort."

So the social worker and the old man bought front row seats to the
circus.  Within a few minutes, the old man was enjoying himself
immensely.  It was the best therapy he'd ever had, and the old man
felt that after so many years he would finally be able to put his life
back together.

Until the final act.

The same clown who had humiliated the old man many years before was
now an old veteran on his final tour.  The clown went right up to the
old man and began to work the same routine.

("Don't worry," whispered the social worker to he old man as the clown
approached, "I have perfect retort.")

The clown asked the old man, "Are you front end of an ass?"

The old man said, "No."

Then the clown asked the old man, "Are you the rear end of an ass?"

The old man, positively scared, meekly said, "No."

Then the clown, with utterly perfect comedic timing, said, "Then you
must be no end of an ass!"

The crowd roared with laughter.  The man was humiliated again.  But
the social winked at him, indicating that he would soon give the clown
the perfect retort.  The old man couldn't wait to hear what it was.

Suddenly the social worker stood up and shouted, "Hey clown!"

The crowd hushed, and clown whirled around to look at him.

"F**k you!"



(It makes even more sense when you consider that Perl programmers
pretty much are clowns.)

Carl Banks



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