The IT crowd

Channel 4 has a site for "The IT Crowd" their late night weirdness about the dysfunctional young in our society condemned to sysadmin.

If you relate, here are some jokes for you ...

-- Remember, only two industries refer to their customers as users.

-- There are only 10 kinds of people, those who understand binary, and those who don't.

"The familiar dot (.) symbol from Internet addresses shall be used on this website to denote the end of a sentence."

"The future is already here, it just isn't evenly distributed."

"When the customer demands the impossible, they will end up buying from the guy who offers them the impossible. And the results, though tragic, are sadly predictable." (Robert A. Heinlien)

"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." (Rich Cook)

All models are wrong; Some are useful.

For every complex problem, there exists a simple solution, which is wrong.

"The last 10% of any software project will take 90% of the budgeted time. The first 90% will take the other 90%"

On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage

"The most successful method of programming is to begin a program as simply as possible, test it, and then add to the program until it performs the required job."
-- The PDP-8/e Small Computer Handbook (DEC, 1972) - Chapter 9, Page 9-64

"A specification that cannot be fit on one 8.5 x 11 inch piece of paper cannot be understood." -- Mark Andis

Computers are high-speed idiots, programmed by low-speed idiots

The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause accidents. -- Nathaniel Borenstein

The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to constants; instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every appearance, the variable PI can be given that value with a DATA statement and used instead of the longer form of the constant. This also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi change. -- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers

"There are two ways of constructing a software design; one way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." -- C. A. R. Hoare

A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. (John Gall)

Working software is the primary measure of progress. (The Agile Manifesto)

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is.

"An unplanned project takes twice as long to complete, a well planned project takes three times as long."

Computers let you make more mistakes than any other invention in history....with the possible exception of handguns and tequila.

"Two things have come out of Berkley, Unix and Acid, we do not belive this to be a coincidence

"Programming is the process of converting caffeine into error messages"

Always code as if the person who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live.

If Java had true garbage collection, most programs would delete themselves upon execution.

Linux sucks twice as fast and 10 times more reliably, and since you have the source, it's your fault. -Ca1v1n

Go to the IT Crowd website (if you have reached this far ...) and you can watch how true all the above lines are.