Programming Is Pretty Funny
And it isn't about inside jokes,
I think it is just that Programmers Are happy people.
At least when they are not being overprotective,
of the wrong languages they became good at.
Or supremely questionable program ideas,
that go out of control when they go public.
I've been the butt of a horrible joke once,
I was briefly antiquated with a cheerful young lady with an eye for company swag.
And she dragged me along with her mom and husband to one of such event,
and as she was bagging all the refrigerator magnets.
I slowly had a PTSD moment looking over the endless *bleeping* cubicles,
and a gent who instantly saw through that poor woman's magnet addiction, walked up to me curious why I wasn't stealing stuff.
"What do you do?" he asked me,
and I said "I am a computer scientist".
His face immediately became rosy and subtly cheerful,
and he slowly backed away to his windows 98 with solitaire sci-ency computer, scientific card came for scientists.
I have since retired from computer scents,
and today, refuse to discuss most of my ideas, perhaps short of how to properly save a file on a multi-process multi-user system.
Curiously, the same damn thing happened,
when I introduced myself as a Professional Philosopher.
That bastard, was unable to control his expression,
and after all the years since, I figured the only kind of Philosopher that he was familiar with...
...was of the ilk that takes long bathroom breaks,
in his culture those be-throned thinkers are refereed to as Genuine Philosophers - god damn.
I remember his slowly moving away,
and whispering something imperceptibly, alas, with the face of a man that is whispering "So am I"
That was the last time I took my career seriously,
and with one out of control introduction where I said "I was a shit squishing redneck" before I could stop myself.
This was in context of bravely taking care of Enormous and Dangerous horses,
and to bravely show - that I can really do it - which I couldn't - and to this day I think, that riding animals is too weird and please don't do it if possible.
Since, I have been introducing myself as a Professional Troublemaker,
which turned out to be a magical way to keep everyone away.
My greatest funny mistake was to crawl out of a dark dungeon of a classroom where programmers were volunteering for charities,
stepping into the sun to have a photo taken and then uttering "I am going to sparkle like vampires from Twilight" way before I could stop myself.
I later called a boy who called me Superman, Lois,
and just a week ago or two remembered his real name, it is Brian from Microsoft.
He said "Hey, Superman",
and I was Like "Good morning Lois", I was tired, I was only trying to return a joke, and I only wear the superman shirt, I don't pay attention to the cast of characters.
I admit there are some iffy insider jokes,
but the language of technology is so fantastically broad and ambiguous, that all they cracks fall on deaf ears, no matter how hard you try.
To me this is amazing, because you can load an office meting with so much crap about Male Agents and Explorers of the Internet, and the superhighway that they ride to get to work,
that only the office stonier that stopped giving a damn ages ago, will actually appreciate it for a change, as a kind of sick and sophisticated poetry.
My favorite funny event, is on the internet,
in a speech about organizing code, very true, very funny, and good technology too.
As with all things,
we have to guard against toxic environments.
Advancing in the world of programming,
is as delicate as the most fanciful chocolate sculpture.
There isn't a job that will be respectful of this journey,
it matters not what the promises are.
When you work as a programmer,
you stop being a Fanciful Scientist, and become a distracted one.
But if you can stay on the path of joy, excellence and achievement,
then it is hard no0t to say, that programming isn't somehow an extension of laughter.
I can't explain this,
at all.
I remember this one programming event where there was only one person on a team,
and it is not that he wasn't able to solve the challenge he was presented with.
He realistically didn't even attempt to do it,
and instead programmed a tiny little thing that would measure microphone volume, and crudely animate Patrick Stewart's bottom chin to it.
And this crude little cartoon, damn all the rest,
was the winner, and the illustration and proof that programming is just as much about laughter as innovation.
Last but not least, I must absolutely mention the The Jargon File, here,
otherwise somewhat known as the Hacker Dictionary.
The metasyntactic variable section may just be most reveling,
as it captures the programmer at their most air headed.
I especially like the french "toto, titi, tata, tutu" and gork, which is British,
I myself used the word flarp in my code just yesterday and have no regrets.
I also use the word hork during heavy lifting exercises,
I use it in the "The Incredible Hork horking up a hairball" sense which as far as I can tell if yet to be cataloged.
Single word description of a programmer?
Somber, serious, contemplative on the surface,
but at heart, out of control, colorful, powerful, happy, cheerful, lovers of life.
Who do things for reasons, reasons so complex, and layered, and muti-plexed, and out of this world,
that very few could ever possibly hope to grasp them, and eventually; none ever will.