This column was orginally published in January of 1993
Courtesy of Jim Louderback of PC Week Magazine
Language guide
This comes from Joe Salemi, syosop extraordinaire of our ZiffNet forum on CompuServe.
With the proliferation of modern programming languages that all share countless features, it's
difficult to remember which language you're using. This guide will help you with this type of trouble.
| C |
You shoot yourself in the foot |
| 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, wildly shooting at everyone in sight |
| C++ |
You accidendtally create a dozen instances of yourself and shoot them a11 in the foot. Providing emergency medical care is impossible because you can't tell which are bitwise copies and which are just pointing at others and saying, "That's me, over there." |
| Ada |
If you are dumb enough to actually use this language, the U. S. Department of Defense will kidnap you, stand you up in front of a firing squad and tell the soldiers to shoot at your feet |
| Modula/2 |
After realizing that you can't actually accomplish anything in this language, you shoot yourself in the head |
| sh, csh etc. |
You can't remember the syntax for anything, so you spend 5 hours reading the manual before giving up. You then shoot the computer and switch to C |
| Smalltalk and Visual Basic |
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 3270 terminal |
| APL |
You hear a gunshot, and there's a hole in your foot, but you don't remember enough linear algebra to understand what the hell happened |
Driving to the Store...
From Will Strang at GRiD. Here is what driving to the store would be like if an operating system ran your car:
| MS-DOS |
You get in the car and try to remember here you put your keys |
| Windows |
You get in the car and drive to the store very slowly, because attached to the back of the car is a freight train |
| System 7 |
You get in the car to go to the store, and the car drives you to church |
| UNIX |
You get in the car and type "grep store." After reaching speeds of 200 miles per hour, you arrive at the barber shop |
| Windows NT |
You get in the car and write a letter that says, "Go to the store." Then you get out and mail the letter to your dashboard |
| Taligent/Pink |
You walk to the store with Ricardo Montalban, who tells you how wonderful it will be when he can fly you to the store in his Lear jet |
| OS/2 |
After fueling up with 6,000 gallons of gas, you get in the car and drive to the store with a motorcycle escort and a marching band in procession. Halfway there, the car blows up, killing everyone in town |
| MVS/VM |
You get in the car and drive to the store. Halfway there you run out of gas. While walking the rest of the way, you are run over by kids on mopeds |
| OS/400 |
An attendant locks you into the car and then drives you to the store, where you watch everybody else buy filet mignons |
| NetWare SFT |
You put a foot into each car and drive to the store. Halfway there, the two-lane highway divides, ripping you in half. Each car then proceeds to the store without you |
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