A prominent lawyer's son dreamed of following in his father's footsteps. After graduating from college and law school with honors, he returned home to join his father's firm, intent on proving himself to be a skilled and worthy attorney. At the end of his first day at work he rushed into his father's office, and said, "Father, father! The Smith case, that you always said would go on forever -- the one you have been toiling on for ten years -- in one single day, I settled that case and saved the client a fortune!" His father frowned, and scolded his son, "I did not say that it would go on forever, son. I said that it could go on forever. When you saw me toiling on that case for days and weeks at a time, didn't it ever occur to you that I was billing by the hour?"
The bigger they are, the harder they hit. The book you spent $20.95 for today will come out in paperback tomorrow. The business plan you prepare must be a lie; but it must be a detailed and precise lie rather than a vague and general lie. The business world worships mediocrity. Officially, we revere free enterprise, initiative, and individuality. Unofficially, we fear it. The careful application of terror is also a form of communication. The chance of forgetting something is directly proportional to...to...uhh... The chance of a piece of bread falling with the buttered side down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet. The chaos in the universe always increases. The chief cause of problems is solutions. The colder the X-ray table, the more of your body is required on it.
Thou shall love thy BBS with all thy heart and all thy bytes. Thou shalt remember thy name and password. Thou shalt only call a BBS two times a day. Honor thy SysOp. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's password, nor his or her real name, computer, software, nor any other thing belonging to him or her. Thou shalt not post messages that are stupid, worthlessor have no meaning. Thou shalt use the English language properly. Thou shalt spell thy words correctly when ever possible. Thou shalt delete thine olden messages. Thou shalt help other users. Thou shalt not post anonymously when offering criticism. Thou shalt keep thy foul language to thyself. Woe be unto the user who attempt to crash thy BBS, for he or she shalt be cast out from the sanctuary of thy hobby and must repent by doing 40 days and 40 nights of penance of voice-only communications. Thou shalt first dial BBS numbers during the day by way of voice line to assure correct numbers. Thou shalt not post messages while drunk. Thou shalt confine thy messages to those of friendship, requests for assistance, aid to the needy, advice, and advancement of thy hobby; and thou art obligated to repel any who wouldst transgress upon those commandments. If thou doth promise to reply to a message and thou doth not, then surely thou shalt spill coffee into thy keyboard and burn out thy central processing chip. Thou shalt not giveth any false information when applying for membership to a BBS, for verily it is written that whosoever shall do so will surely be found out and thy welcome on all boards will be thus denied forever and ever. Thou shalt log on properly and in accordance with the SysOp's rules. Thou shalt observe BBS time limits. Thou shalt not upload "worm" programs. Thou shalt not ask stupid questions that are already fully explained in the BBS instructions. Thou shalt not exchange copy protected software thru the BBS. Thou shalt not violate applicable state/federal/local laws hand regulations affecting BBS telecommunications, or thy
It seems the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has a unique device for testing the strength of windshields on airplanes. The device is a gun that launches a dead chicken at a plane's windshield at approximately the speed the plane flies. The theory is that if the windshield doesn't crack from the carcass impact, it'll survive a real collision with a bird during flight. It seems the British were very interested in this and wanted to test a windshield on a brand new, speedy locomotive they're developing. They borrowed the FAA's chicken launcher, loaded the chicken and fired. The ballistic chicken shattered the windshield, went through the engineer's chair, broke an instrument panel and embedded itself in the back wall of the engine cab. The British were stunned and asked the FAA to recheck the test to see if everything was done correctly. The FAA reviewed the test thoroughly and had one recommendation: "Use a thawed chicken."
1. Thou shalt run lint frequently and study its pronouncements with care, for verily its perception and judgement oft exceed thine. 2. Thou shalt not follow the NULL pointer, for chaos and madness await thee at its end. 3. Thou shalt cast all function arguments to the expected type if they are not of that type already, even when thou art convinced that this is unnecessary, lest they take cruel vengeance upon thee when thou least expect it. 4. If thy header files fail to declare the return types of thy library functions, thou shalt declare them thyself with the most meticulous care, lest grievous harm befall thy program. 5. Thou shalt check the array bounds of all strings (indeed, all arrays), for surely where thou typest ``foo'' someone someday shall type ``supercalifragilisticexpialidocious''. 6. If a function be advertised to return an error code in the event of difficulties, thou shalt check for that code, yea, even though the checks triple the size of thy code and produce aches in thy typing fingers, for if thou thinkest ``it cannot happen to me'', the gods shall surely punish thee for thy arrogance. 7. Thou shalt study thy libraries and strive not to re-invent them without cause, that thy code may be short and readable and thy days pleasant and productive. 8. Thou shalt make thy program's purpose and structure clear to thy fellow man by using the One True Brace Style, even if thou likest it not, for thy creativity is better used in solving problems than in creating beautiful new impediments to understanding. 9. Thy external identifiers shall be unique in the first six characters, though this harsh discipline be irksome and the years of its necessity stretch before thee seemingly without end, lest thou tear thy hair out and go mad on that fateful day when thou desirest to make thy program run on an old system. 10. Thou shalt foreswear, renounce, and abjure the vile heresy which claimeth that ``All the world's a VAX'', and have no commerce with the benighted heathens who cling to this barbarous b