The Best of Verity Stob: Highlights of Verity Stob’s Famous Columns From EXE, Dr. Dobb’s Journal, and The Register PDF
Preview The Best of Verity Stob: Highlights of Verity Stob’s Famous Columns From EXE, Dr. Dobb’s Journal, and The Register
THE BEST OF VERITY STOB Highlights of Verity Stob’s Famous Columns From EXE, Dr. Dobb’s Journal, and The Register THE BEST OF VERITY STOB Highlights of Verity Stob’s Famous Columns From EXE, Dr. Dobb’s Journal, and The Register Verity Stob The Best of Verity Stob: Highlights of Verity Stob’s Famous Columns from EXE,Dr. Dobb’s Journal, and The Register Copyright © 2005 by Verity Stob Lead Editor: Chris Mills Technical Reviewer: Shelley Powers Editorial Board: Steve Anglin, Dan Appleman, Ewan Buckingham, Gary Cornell, Tony Davis, Jason Gilmore, Chris Mills, Dominic Shakeshaft, Jim Sumser Project Manager: Kylie Johnston Copy Edit Manager: Nicole LeClerc Copy Editor: Ami Knox Production Manager: Kari Brooks-Copony Production Editor: Kelly Winquist Compositor: Dina Quan Proofreader: Linda Seifert Indexer: Kevin Broccoli Artist: Kinetic Publishing Cover Designer: Kurt Krames Manufacturing Manager: Tom Debolski Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Stob, Verity. The best of Verity Stob : highlights of Verity Stob’s famous columns from EXE, Dr. Dobb’s Journal, and The Register / Verity Stob. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 1-59059-442-8 1. Computers—Social aspects. 2. Computers—Humor. I. Title. QA76.9.C66S878 2005 303.48’34—dc22 2004029021 All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher. Printed and bound in the United States of America 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Trademarked names may appear in this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, we use the names only in an editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark. Distributed to the book trade in the United States by Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010 and outside the United States by Springer-Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69112 Heidelberg, Germany. In the United States: phone 1-800-SPRINGER, fax 201-348-4505, e-mail [email protected], or visit http://www.springer-ny.com. Outside the United States: fax +49 6221 345229, e-mail [email protected], or visit http://www.springer.de. For information on translations, please contact Apress directly at 2560 Ninth Street, Suite 219, Berkeley, CA 94710. Phone 510-549-5930, fax 510-549-5939, e-mail [email protected], or visit http://www.apress.com. The information in this book is distributed on an “as is” basis, without warranty. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this work, neither the author(s) nor Apress shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information contained in this work. For the dear peeps at Dotted and Dotless, who laughed first Contents Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii Author’s Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv PART I LIFE BEFORE GUIS (1988–1994) 1 How Friendly Is Your Software? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 The Programmers’ Guide to Programmers . . . . . . . . . . 5 Larn Yasel Programmin! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 POET’S Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 The Maltese Modem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Late One Night . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 The Kraken Sleeps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Twenty Things (Almost) You Didn’t Know ... . . . . . . 21 Few Lend (but Fools) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 The Best Improve with Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 STOB versus the Software Engineers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Auntie Verity’s Hardware Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Underground Liff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 The Games We Play . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 A Chance to Meet You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Wot Any Bule Kno . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 About ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Not Fairies’ Footfalls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 FLGMJLLGHQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 In Glorious VerityVision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 viii Contents PART II THE RASP OF THE MODEM (1995–19100) 55 I Want to Die . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Dear Bill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Modem Tales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Around and Around . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Four Yorkshiremen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Email and Femail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Morse Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 I Prefer Tea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Junior Makes Three . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Don’t Look Back . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Book of Anders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 The Black Eye of the Little Blue Techie . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Mr.Jobs Works Next Door . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 Quality Street . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 You May Start . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 8086 and All That . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 The Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 Park Gates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Et Tu Gnome? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 Let’s Parler Y2K! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 Yocam Hokum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 Bye Bye Byte . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 Night Mail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 Cringing for Bobot or How I Learned to Stop Worrying About the Quality of My Work and Just Made Dreary TV Programmes Instead . . . . . . . . 133 One Nostril Hair,17mm,Grey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 The Dog’s Breakfast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 Book of Yoc-am (Contd.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 Contents ix Fair Play . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 By Other Means . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 Waltz$ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 Thirteen Ways to Loathe VB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Claire’s Story and Other Tragedies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 Down the Pole . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 Out to Lunch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 PART III AFTER THE APOCALYPSE (2000–2004) 171 Two by Two . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 Big Iron Age Man . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 Just William . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 Downwards and Backwards with Dotdotdot . . . . . 185 Up with the Joneses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188 Wherever He Goes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194 The Devil’s Netiquette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 At the Tomb of the IUnknown Interface . . . . . . . . . . 201 Double Plus Good? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 I Know This,It’s Unix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 Your Call Is Important to Us . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214 Way After 1984 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216 Patter Song . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220 Roger D.Hubris Ate My Hamster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224 State of Decay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228 In Memoriam—Edsger Dijkstra,1930–2002 . . . . . . . 233 Open Saucery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234 Idle Thoughts of an Idle Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238 Fragments from a New Finnish Epic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241 Stoblog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245 x Contents We Don’t Guarantee That Using The Latest .NET XML Windows API Feature Can Metaphorically Speaking Put Bounce In Your Boobs And/Or Hairs On Your Chest (Delete As Applicable) But By GollyWe Find It Extremely Hard To Imagine Circumstances Under Which This Will Not Follow As Naturally As Night Follows Day . . . . . . 248 Soundtrack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252 Damnation Without Relief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256 Cold Comfort Server Farm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 ForgeAhead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263 One After 409 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 Jam Today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270 Borland Revelations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275 Patenting by Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279 Confessions of a Spammer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286 PART IV PREVIOUSLY UNPUBLISHED 295 Solder Cellar—Kindly Accept Substitutes . . . . . . . 296 Lara’s Last Stand? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299 Too Obscure or Rude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301 Glossary of Britisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311 Foreword It’s hard to believe now, but there was a time when writing jokes about multi-dispatch inheritance in dynamically typed languages simply wasn’t the glamorous, highly paid profession that it is today. Before Slashdot, before User Friendly and the Joy of Tech, before Futurama, before Old Man Murray, before Dilbert, and before “1001 Surefire Gags about C++ That Will Wow Your Klingon Wedding Guests,” funny for geeks was a criminally underserved market sector. Biro-drawn cartoon strips were the typical fare, all called something like Just Byting Around! or Giga-giggles! These would run for a few months in Practical Computingor PC Handholderor some such maga- zine. After recycling gags revolving around hard drives and floppy disk entendres, these wretched specimens died for lack of inspiration and, I would hope, some vestigial sense of shame. And then there was, thank God, Verity Stob. I remember the first time I read the Stob column. It was 1988, and I was hiding in a fluorescent-lit dungeon in the heart of my university, strumming futilely through the lower-rent academic journals and controlled-circulation tech mags. The first few lines—some throwaway comment about Lisp, I think— had my snorts echoing across the library. I was hooked. I remember at the time having a light bulb appear above my head: thinking, yes, this is how it should be done. In the end, I ploughed through all the back-issues the library held, cackling like all the functional programming crazies that sat in the corner of that partic- ular institution. Not that I had any idea about how Stob managed it. I’m still some- what in awe of the tricks Stob pulled off. Unlike everything else in the tech world then, Stob’s jokes were subtle, original—and also often ratherhard. Even as I laughed out loud at the gags I understood, I could sense there was dozens buried underneath that I was missing. And, somehow, the tricksier the references they were, the funnier they got.
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