If Programming Languages Were Shooting Yourself In The Foot

[Rags]

I got a chuckle out of this, thought some of you may enjoy it too

If Programming Languages were ... Shooting your self in the foot

The proliferation of modern programming languages (all of which seem to have stolen countless features from one another) sometimes makes it difficult to remember which language you're currently using.
This handy reference is offered as a public service to help programmers who find themselves in such a dilemma.

TASK: Shoot yourself in the foot

C
You shoot yourself in the foot.

C++
You accidentally create a dozen instances of yourself and shoot them all in the foot. Providing emergency medical assistance is impossible since you can't tell which are bitwise copies and which are just pointing at others and saying, "That's me, over there."

FORTRAN
You shoot yourself in each toe, iteratively, until you run out of toes, then you read in the next foot and repeat. If you run out of bullets, you continue with the attempts to shoot yourself anyways because you have no exception-handling capability.

Java
The Java Verifier will not allow you to handle a Gun.

Pascal
The compiler won't let you shoot yourself in the foot.

Ada
After correctly packing your foot, you attempt to concurrently load the gun, pull the trigger, scream, and shoot yourself in the foot. When you try, however, you discover you can't because your foot is of the wrong type.

COBOL
Using a COLT 45 HANDGUN, AIM gun at LEG.FOOT, THEN place ARM.HAND.FINGER on HANDGUN.TRIGGER and SQUEEZE. THEN return HANDGUN to HOLSTER. CHECK whether shoelace needs to be re-tied.

LISP
You shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds...

FORTH
Foot in yourself shoot.

Prolog
You tell your program that you want to be shot in the foot. The program figures out how to do it, but the syntax doesn't permit it to explain it to you.

BASIC
Shoot yourself in the foot with a water pistol. On large systems, continue until entire lower body is waterlogged.

Visual Basic
You'll really only appear to have shot yourself in the foot, but you'll have had so much fun doing it that you won't care.

HyperTalk
Put the first bullet of gun into foot left of leg of you. Answer the result.

Motif
You spend days writing a UIL description of your foot, the bullet, its trajectory, and the intricate scrollwork on the ivory handles of the gun. When you finally get around to pulling the trigger, the gun jams.

APL
You shoot yourself in the foot, then spend all day figuring out how to do it in fewer characters.

SNOBOL
If you succeed, shoot yourself in the left foot. If you fail, shoot yourself in the right foot.

Unix
% ls
foot.c foot.h foot.o toe.c toe.o
% rm * .o
rm:.o no such file or directory
% ls
%

Concurrent Euclid
You shoot yourself in somebody else's foot.

370 JCL
You send your foot down to MIS and include a 400-page document explaining exactly how you want it to be shot. Three years later, your foot comes back deep-fried.

Paradox
Not only can you shoot yourself in the foot, your users can, too.

Access
You try to point the gun at your foot, but it shoots holes in all your Borland distribution diskettes instead.

Revelation
You're sure you're going to be able to shoot yourself in the foot, just as soon as you figure out what all these nifty little bullet-thingies are for.

Assembler
You try to shoot yourself in the foot, only to discover you must first invent the gun, the bullet, the trigger, and your foot.

Modula2
After realizing that you can't actually accomplish anything in this language, you shoot yourself in the head.

COM
You create an instance of your foot, the gun and a bullet. You realise the bullet is the wrong calbre and wont fit properly in the IChamber, and that your foot is not registered.

ActiveX
{AAGUN-06A3-SH00T-8F98-F00TB92EB7}

[impact]

From my experience, I can say that the part about Java is absolutely correct (unless you somehow get hold of and import java.weapons.* ). Not that I am complaining.

[cjolley]

You forgot SQL:

SELECT bp.foot
  FROM me.bodyparts bp
 UNION ALL
SELECT am.bullet
  FROM gun.parts gp,
       ammo.bullet am
 WHERE gp.name = 'BARREL'
   AND am.size = gp.size

chuck



[This message has been edited by cjolley (edited 01 March 2001).]

[Pace]

Wow, even got my language (Ada) in there

But what about html itself? Suppose it might make a bloody mark-up the walls

P.

[Laurie]

How about Arc/Info AML (Arc Macro Language)?

arc: precision double (so bullets know EXACLTLY where to go)
arc: create gun
arc: create foot
arc: arcedit
arcedit: editcover gun
arcedit: createfeature bullet
arcedit: editfeature bullet
arcedit: add
arcedit: (hit 1 button 6 times) (for handgun)(more if you really want to make a mess of your foot)
arcedit: save (just in case)
arcedit: editfeature bullet
arcedit: sel box
arcedit response: '6 bullets (or whatever) selected'
arcedit: put foot
arcedit response: 'foot exists. Do you want to append? Y/N'
arcedit: Y

Of course I would have to build in error traps: for example, if there were no bullets in gun I couldn't put them in foot .

[This message has been edited by Laurie (edited 01 March 2001).]