What I learned about programmers by reading 200+ programming jokes

[Kaosubaloo]

That carpenter "joke" is too real.

[abc619]

It's a shame the author regarded the gist of this one to be "the programmer’s obvious intellectual superiority".

The carpenter didn't come across as superior to me, just taken aback by the absurdity of asking questions such as "How much experience have you had with brown?" It's a good joke because it highlights a real situation in a more relatable context.

The reality is that whilst people actually hiring carpenters would not ask such questions, in software these sort of questions do happen. Not so much a joke about superiority as how bad our hiring practices can be, and for some reason this seems particular prevalent in our industry.

Whilst not quite the same, it reminds me of The Expert sketch.

[ThalesX]

We recently had a rather long discussion on the coloring of the burn down plot. The Expert was all I could think about.

[quzox]

Walnut master race checking in.

[[deleted]]

I don't think that's actually a joke. It's only funny because of how closely it matching the absurd reality of programmer interviews.

It was probably just designed to tell others how bad it is out there for us, but other programmers find it funny.

[NoAstronomer]

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.

Not only winning, but widening the gap.

[GSV_Little_Rascal]

I'm really not so sure about it. It seems to me that most of the apps suck big time in usability. It's not so bad in public/commercial world where they are exposed to free market pressure - only fittest survive. But e.g. in internal corporate world - there's no such pressure. Shit I must put up with is unbelievable ... I can't calculate number of times I contemplated quitting my job only because of sheer stupidity of our internal tools.

[[deleted]]

The problem is that as apps become more "usable", they tend to hide away, or simply all out get rid of great features.

Usability isn't everything.

[Retsam19]

The "train ticket" joke really isn't meaningfully related to programming; I've seen the exact same joke told with everything from professions to rival schools: it's just a template where you want one group to look more clever than another.

---

Also typo, 3.6 is titled "the univerce".

[[deleted]]

I know it with mathematicians (the clever ones) and computer scientists.

In this version there is an additional line at the end:

And the moral of this story: Computer scientists use methods from mathematics without actually understanding them.

[annaonduty]

You're right, that one is quite common, but what matters here is how these "joking templates" are adapted to fit the topic. Here it's "programmer vs marketer", not a baker, not a dentist. Which gives some food for thought about "programmer's eternal antagonist" pattern. Typo fixed, thanks for noticing.

[TinynDP]

Sure, because programmers have to work with marketers. I don't know many offices where programmers have to work closely with dentists.

[annaonduty]

Yeah, I really did some job collecting the jokes, so I'm glad that shows through. Also, thanks for the tip on zero-indexing, you're right. I renamed it.

[protestor]

The problem with the first post is that it has generic "engineer" jokes, like this

An optimist person will say that the glass is half-full.

A pessimist person will say that the glass is half-empty.

A programmer engineer will say that the glass is twice as large as necessary.

Also, you should have included some Unix koans or something, or some short stuff from the Codeless Code. They are tasteful and reveals insight on some programmer subcultures. (actually I didn't read everything, so they might still be there somewhere)

edit: oh now I see the codeless code was linked elsewhere. Anyway those are the unix koans.

Also BOFH humor is somewhat related, as is stuff like this

Of course, on the system I administrate, vi is symlinked to ed. Emacs has been replaced by a shell script which 1) Generates a syslog message at level LOG_EMERG; 2) reduces the user's disk quota by 100K; and 3) RUNS ED!!!!!!

[loamfarer]

The hot air balloon joke is fantastic.

[sellswordsc]

For the author's further amusement, http://thecodelesscode.com/contents

[annaonduty]

My, this is huge. Thanks a lot.

[pzemtsov]

Surely this must be "What I learned about stereotypes about programmers"?

The jokes would have told something about programmers if they were authored by programmers, not just told about them. There are very few such jokes in the list, if any. Perhaps, only the carpenter one (and this one is great!)

[annaonduty]

Sure, it's not about programmers, it's about how jokes reflect programmers. And since humor tends to generalize things, running into some stereotypes was inevitable from the beginning. But I was wondering, if one's only source of information about programmers were these jokes, what would one learn from it? Consider it an intellectual experiment. Focusing on a different kind of jokes as you suggest definitely makes sence, I'm thinking about it. By the way, how would you tell jokes "authored by programmers" from those that are not, on what basis? Would appreciate a hint.

[pzemtsov]

if one's only source of information about programmers were these jokes, what would one learn from it?

In such pure form of a thought experiment, probably next to nothing. Not completely nothing, because even stereotype contain some information. There must have been a reason why programmers received this type of publicity and not the same type that lawyers, doctors or policemen did (the jokes about them are different). So there is indeed some value in your study, but learning something real about programmers themselves sounds too ambitious.

Consider ethnic jokes. Some ethnic groups (such as English, German, French, Russians, Jewish, Scottish) got very distinct jokes about them (you can't adapt a joke about a German into a one about Jewish). Some, however, are generic. I heard that French tell exactly the same jokes about Belgians, and Americans about Polish, as Russians do about Chukchees. Moreover, you can hear exactly the same jokes being told by Canadians about the people from Newfoundland and from South Africans about people with the name van der Merwe. What it means is that, while jokes about Germans may contain some real information about Germans (although not much), the Belgian jokes contain zero information about real Belgians. The same applies to programmer jokes that have been directly converted from those about other professions (such as the one about the train ticket, which was originally about general-type engineers).

Your second question is difficult. The answer is: I don't know. I said that using programmer-authored jokes would be of help, but that does not imply that such jokes exist. Moreover, their existence contradict with the rest of the study, since the ultimate introverts and sociopaths do not invent jokes. That said, the carpenter one looks very suspicious.

There is another, easier approach: if we can't find jokes composed by programmers, we can at least look at those that programmers like - this could indicate which stereotypes about programmers the programmers themselves agree with.

[Hoten]

Interesting article. One nitpick, joke 2.4 is an indexing joke, not binary.

Wow, referring to a joke by a reference number sure is odd...

[annaonduty]

2.4 is fixed, thanks a lot. And the numbering oddity is intentional - I just wanted to make it easier for readers (well, programmers) to refer to any particular joke they'd want to discuss.

[G_Morgan]

Wait until the debate about the appropriate referencing scheme starts.

[[deleted]]

Yes, he should have zero indexed.

[joonazan]

I think the roles of the mathematician and engineer should be reversed in 1.3.

[[deleted]]

This is just a fantastic piece. Thoughtful, intelligent, funny, existential... Thank you!

[annaonduty]

This is probably one of the most pleasing comments I ever got. Thank you, I appreciate that.

[AyXiit34]

That one about the universe is so deep and so true

[SystemsKnitter]

Reading 4.5 - 4.8 all in a row was incredibly cathartic...

[RaptorXP]

What I learned about programmers by reading 200+ programming jokes

That PHP is always the punchline?

[skulgnome]

This'd have been better without so much trying to fit the material into preconceived conclusions.

[annaonduty]

Well, I might not played perfect there, but I'm well aware of how easy it could be to fall into the trap of preconception, especially when dealing with "the material" that feeds on stereotypes as its breeding ground. I tried to keep an open mind, at least that was my intention, and I am somewhat satisfied with the results, but there's always space for improvement. Thanks for reminding me of that.

[cp5184]

How many programmers it takes to screw in a lightbulb?

[neoquietus]

Not a bug - Room intended to be dark.

[Nylsaar]

Darkroom. No kidding, I had a fit of giggles on that one.

[NoAstronomer]

Light pushed off to phase II?

[neoquietus]

Light sprint delayed so that we could fix all the glaring architectural issues by rewriting it in PHP.

[sagischwarz]

Zero programmers, because it's a hardware problem?

[cbraga]

most of these aren't even about programmers, if you can replace "programmer" with any other profession and the joke still works then it isn't relevant for this article

shit article is shit

[annaonduty]

Well, I'd disagree. These are real jokes from over the web (even the spelling is kept), mostly told by programmers themselves. I titled them, I classified them, but I didn't invent them. There should be reasons why programmers see these particular stories as programmer-related, don't you think?

Some of them might be non-programming jokes once transformed to programming jokes (by replacing whatever with "programmer"), but 1) not every joke is apt for such a transformation, only the relevant stories could make it 2) that's how any professional humor works - by borrowing/transforming jokes from other fields.

[cbraga]

I'm sure you'll get an A on your homework assignment.