Shoot yourself 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 what 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.
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.
