
What is your best programmer joke? - pooriaazimi
http://stackoverflow.hewgill.com/questions/234/075.html
======
ghewgill
Archivist here. The reason this page exists is it's part of an archive of
deleted Stack Overflow content:
[http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/124850/unofficial-
st...](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/124850/unofficial-stack-
overflow-deleted-question-archive-now-available)

The "programmer joke" and "programmer cartoon" questions were two of the most
highly upvoted questions that have since been removed from the site because
they aren't actually programming questions. I created this archive to attempt
to preserve some of this early history of Stack Overflow.

~~~
sp332
But, isn't it still there? [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/234075/what-is-
your-best-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/234075/what-is-your-best-
programmer-joke/)

~~~
ghewgill
Looks like it has been undeleted since I created the deleted question archive.
The sands, they shift.

------
aristus
A programmer walks into a bar and orders 1.00000000001000000...897175 root
beers. The bartender says, "I'll have to charge you extra; that's a root beer
float". And the programmer says, "In that case, make it a double".

~~~
nickknw
As someone who just recently tangled with floating point error, that was
hilarious!

------
zalzane
I got one to contribute.

Q: How do you obtain a random string?

A: Put a freshman compsci student in front of a vim terminal and tell him to
save and quit.

~~~
raverbashing
"Oh, how I wish I could quit you!" First time VIM users

------
edw519
On the way to a sales call, a salesman, a project manager, and a programmer
were kidnapped. When their employer refused to pay the ransom, the kidnappers
granted each a last wish before killing them. The salesman said, "I still want
to make the pitch I prepared for today. It's awesome and will only take an
hour." The project manager said, "I still want to present my Powerpoint for
this project. It's only 92 slides." The programmer said, "Kill me first."

~~~
gnosis
Another version of that joke:

A mathematician, a scientist, and a dean were kidnapped. When their university
refused to pay the ransom, the kipnappers announced that they would kill them
all, but only after each got his last wish.

The mathematician said he had an elegant alternative proof to the four color
theorem and would like to sketch it out. It would only take 1 hour.

The scientist wanted to show his proof that the universe is flat. It would
only take 2 hours.

The dean said, "Kill me first."

~~~
civilian
And a Scandinavian version of this:

A Dane, a Swede and a Norwegian are sentenced to death. The Judge asks them if
they have any last wishes.

The Dane says: "Eh, could I get a beer?"

The Norwegian says: "I want to make a speech about the injustice of this
ruling!"

and the Swede says: "I want to be executed before the Norwegian."

------
gnosis
The following anecdote about Steve Jobs is from [1]:

    
    
      I was sitting in Steve's office when Lynn Takahashi, Steve's assistant,
      announced Knuth's arrival. Steve bounced out of his chair,
      bounded over to the door and extended a welcoming hand.
    
      "It's a pleasure to meet you, Professor Knuth," Steve said.
      "I've read all of your books."
    
      "You're full of shit," Knuth responded.
    

[1] -
[http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&s...](http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Close_Encounters_of_the_Steve_Kind.txt)

~~~
tompko
There's a talk by Randall Munroe (xkcd) at google where this is debunked by
Knuth himself. It also features him being asked questions about Python by
Guido.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJOS0sV2a24>

------
amalag
I know one about UDP, but it's ok, I don't know if you would get it.

~~~
hdra
LOL. Is this a reference to the lack of error checking and ACK in UDP?

~~~
jacquesm
You didn't get it!

~~~
andyidsinga
hahaahahahaha

------
nickknw
I had a problem, so I thought I'd use Java. Now I have a ProblemFactory.

~~~
evincarofautumn
I believe the class you’re looking for is
“ProblemFactoryManagerThreadLocalSingletonBeanAdapter”.

------
dmvaldman
Three logicians walk into a bar...

Bartender: can I get you all a drink?

1st logician: maybe

2nd logician: maybe

3rd logician: yes

~~~
manaskarekar
Comic version: <http://spikedmath.com/445.html>

Follow up: <http://mrburkemath.blogspot.com/2011/05/coffee-logic.html>

------
seshagiric
Q. What is the object oriented way of getting rich?

A. Inheritance

~~~
MaysonL
_Multiple_ inheritance.

------
pooriaazimi
I particularly liked this one: <http://www.projectcartoon.com/cartoon/1>

~~~
Bill_Dimm
"What the digg effect can do to your site."

That cartoon must be pretty old...

------
bentaber
Hex color code jokes?

Dolphin gray: #eeeeee

Psycho killer gray: #fafafa

~~~
mikeroher
I don't get it...<http://hexpreview.com/fafafa(eeeeee)>

~~~
UntitledNo4
Eeeeee is the sound a dolphin makes. For the second one, please listen to
Psycho Killer by The Talking Heads

------
MaysonL
At IBM, there was a project to figure out what made great programmers. They
were going to give a psychological profile test to a group of their
programmers. Unfortunately, they didn't have enough copies of the test.
Luckily, the test came in two halves, so they just gave one half of the group
the first half of the test, and the other half of the group the second half.
After finishing the first section, and switching sections, the psychologist
read the same directions as the first half, and then (expecting no response)
asked "Any questions?", and was somewhat surprised when one of the best
programmers in the group raised his hand. "Yes?"

"Are we supposed to use the same personality on this as we used on the first
half?"

(From Gerald Weinberg's _The Psychology of Computer Programming_ )

------
spartas
There are two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation, naming
things, and off-by-one errors

------
nickknw
If comics count, I think this one's pretty funny:
<http://www.explosm.net/comics/2083/>

------
hkmurakami
Apologies, but can someone explain this one to me?

    
    
        Q: Why don't jokes work in octal?
        
        A: Because 7 10 11.

~~~
mhartl
The original joke goes like this:

    
    
        Why is 6 afraid of 7? 
        Because 7 8 [ate] 9.
    

In octal, this reads "Because 7 10 11", which doesn't work because our
tendency is to read it as decimal, yielding "seven ten eleven".

~~~
hkmurakami
Thanks! now it all makes sense :)

~~~
Fishkins
I like another variant of the joke (which would work in octal): Q: Why was 6
afraid of 7? A: Because 7 was a registered 6 offender

------
gnosis
Did you hear about the computer programmer who died in the shower?

He was just following the instructions on the shampoo bottle: 'Lather, rinse,
repeat.'

~~~
infinite_snoop
A programmers wife asks him to get some milk while he is out, she never sees
him again.

------
microwise
Tom: Get me a sandwich. Joe: No. Tom: Sudo, get me a sandwich Joe: Okay.

~~~
JTxt
<http://xkcd.com/149/>

------
jacquesm
One archangel to another:

Hey Gabe! Come over here... someone on earth has found a bug in your physics
program.

Dear me, I thought I'd fixed that centuries ago.

Oh well, better late than never.

'tappity, clickety, tappity'. 'make; make deploy'

There, that'll do it. Another aeon, another bugfix.

\--

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion>

------
spodek
I don't know if it qualifies as a joke, but I loved and learned from the Tao
of Programming -- <http://www.canonical.org/~kragen/tao-of-programming.html>.

Too long to paste here, but it's stood the test of time.

------
gnosis
A joke of the first order was told to a Scotchman, who was unable to see it.

The person (X) who told this joke told the story of how the joke was received
to another Scotchman, thereby making a joke about a joke of the first order,
and thus making a joke of the second order.

X remarked on this joke that no joke that no joke could penetrate the head of
the Scotchman to whom the joke of the first order was told, even if it were
fired into his head with a gun.

The Scotchman, after severe thought, replied: "But ye couldn't do that, ye
know!"

X repeated the whole story, which constituted a joke of the third order, to a
third Scotchman.

This last Scotchman again, after prolonged thought, replied; "He had ye
there!" This whole story is a joke of the fourth order.

(from _"The Philosophy of Mr. B-rtr-nd R-ss-ll"_ , by Philip Jourdain)

~~~
auxbuss
Scotsman not, er, what you said. I'm saving your life here!

Also, it's whisky (whiskey is the Irish variant), not scotch.

Just FYI.

------
jcr
Humor on Hacker News?

I thought I felt a disturbance in the source!

~~~
davidw
You can do humor on HN. It just has to be genuinely funny and original, and
appropriate to the thread in question.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=458155>

~~~
jcr
I loved the infocom reference!

And yes you're right, but people often complain about HN being a humorless
void, when it simply isn't true.

------
Silhouette
A SQL query goes into a bar, walks over to a couple of tables, and asks, "Mind
if I join you?"

One of the tables says, "Normally that would be OK, but we're only here for
the view."

------
gnosis
How do you tell an extraverted programmer from an introverted one?

An extraverted programmer stares at _your_ shoes when talking to you.

~~~
chc
The joke kind of loses something without the emphasis.

"An extraverted programmer stares at _your_ shoes while talking to you."

~~~
gnosis
Thanks. Corrected.

------
lexicore
Here's my "April's Fool" joke on Stackoverflow:

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2557423/how-to-limit-
spee...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2557423/how-to-limit-speed-with-
bmw-jsdk-on-116i)

I actually had to write a small API to make this compile.

------
mhartl
Many of these are good, but why are so many of the quotes coming out as
question marks?

------
unimpressive
A hacker walks into a bar. He sits at the counter for a few minutes and the
bartender walks over.

He takes a look at the hacker and says "Ain't ya gonna have a drink?"

The hacker looks back almost offended "Don't you know, drinking is a sin!"

"ACK." Says the bartender, and he walks away.

------
mdanger
Q: Why did the computer programmer show up to the Halloween party in a Santa
suit?

A: OCT 31 = DEC 25

------
BerislavLopac
A programmer's wife gave her husband instructions for the grocery store: "Get
a margarine, and if they have eggs get ten." He returns a while later,
bringing ten margarines and saying: "They had eggs."

------
Silhouette
recursion, _n_. See "tail recursion".

tail recursion, _n_. See "tail recursion".

------
megablast
There are 3 types of people in the world, those that can count, and those that
can't.

There is also the joke about someone finding a secret NASA lisp program. To
prove it he sent the last 40 pages.

~~~
Raz0rblade
no there are 10 types of people does that can can count and those that can't,
its a binary joke.

~~~
graywh
... those that understand binary and those that don't.

------
JoshuaRedmond
There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand ternary, those
who don't, and those who though it was binary.

(Nice thing about this joke is that you can expand it to base-n)

~~~
InclinedPlane
There are 11 types of people in the world, those who understand unary and
those who don't.

------
civilian
Writing code is like dealing with an Old Testament god. Lots of rules and no
mercy.

------
BerislavLopac
Why programmers keep confusing Halloween with Christmas? Because Oct 31 == Dec
25.

------
kevando
Knock Knock.

Who's there? .

.

.

. .

.

. .

.

. .

.

. .

.

. .

.

. .

.

. .

.

. .

.

. .

.

Java

~~~
pooriaazimi
This variation is better:

    
    
        - Knock Knock.
        - Who's there?
        [long pause]
        - Java
    
        - Knock Knock.
        - Who's there?
        - C
    
        - Knock Knock.
        - Assembly

~~~
qbrass
\- Forth \- Knock Knock

------
rikacomet
Once, Chuck Norris tried to code. The world went into a loop.

------
surement
perl is an interesting language in that it is the only one that looks the same
_before_ and _after_ RSA encryption.

------
krapp
Compiler? I don't even know her!

------
gnosis
recursive: (λ damn. damn (damn)) (λ damn. damn (damn))

------
nirrrrrr
to be or not to be = ff

(2b OR NOT 2b)

~~~
microwise
Here is another version

question= ( to ) ? be : ! be;

~~~
jacquesm
2b|!2b

------
Raz0rblade
if ((boy | girl)|Marriage){boy.freewill = false;} else if (boy != (boy |
girl)) {boy.drinks = true;} else if (boy == girl){gay = true;}

------
andyidsinga
two foos walk into a bar...

~~~
andyidsinga
10 foos walk a bar ;)

------
maeon3
When reading/reviewing a particularly bad piece of code in front of the person
who wrote it, say:

If your language had true garbage collection, the compiler would have deleted
this program upon execution.

------
maeon3
When you have the attention of more than 3 passionate guru programmers, ask:

"Does the curley brace go on the first line of the for loop or on the next
line?"

Laugh at any opinion given, calling them "silly".

------
maeon3
Programmer asks for some advice on what data structure to best map his family
tree:

2nd Programmer says: For you I would suggest a "directed acyclic graph".

~~~
Adrock
But that's the right answer! How many distinct ancestors do you think you have
40 generations ago? We're all inbred by the pigeon-hole principle.

------
maeon3
When Chuck Norris throws an exception, it’s across the room.

~~~
KingMob
Any test for equality on ChuckNorris fails. He has no equals.

Chuck Norris invented programming. Why do you think it began with punch cards?

Chuck Norris never gets thread contention; threads cooperate if they want to
live.

If Norris doesn't like your site, he duck-punches your Javascript until it
works.

I attempted to kill -9 Chuck Norris and my keyboard shocked me for my
impudence.

Chuck Norris can write Haskell... in assembler.

------
maeon3
Two Programmers are walking along the sidewalk when both simultaneously spot a
hundred dollar bill on the ground between them. They begin a lively discussion
of the nature of the problem, what is right? What is moral, what is just? What
would people of various religions say? Should we split it? Does might make
right? They spend hours discussing the fascinating problem and what should be
done about it. They finally decide to settle things like the enlightened
manner appropriate for civilized beings. A game a rock paper scissors. While
performing the game, a Religious figure runs up, grabs the money, waves around
a knife and disappears back into the crowd.

------
martinced
Not programmer per se but the best one ever using _"walks into a bar"_ :

 _We don't allow faster-than-light neutrinos in here, says the bartender.

A neutrino walks into a bar._

------
maeon3
Working on a coding project, one programmer asks the other who wrote up these
project specifications?

Other programmer says: I can't tell you where the specs were designed, but be
careful, the paper is still hot.

------
maeon3
My program won't compile, I think I've lost one of my bits, can you help me
find it? I think I dropped it on the carpet over there, it may have rolled
under the desk.

------
maeon3
While pair programming: "There!! It compiles!"..... SHIP IT!

