Retired Engineer

There was an engineer who had an exceptional gift for fixing all things mechanical. After serving his company loyally for over 30 years, he happily retired. Several years later the company contacted him regarding a seemingly impossible problem they were having with one of their multimillion dollar machines. They had tried everything and everyone else to get the machine to work but to no avail. In desperation, they called on the retired engineer who had solved so many of their problems in the past. The engineer reluctantly took the challenge. He spent a day studying the huge machine. At the end of the day, he marked a small "x" in chalk on a particular component of the machine and stated, "This is where your problem is." The part was replaced and the machine worked perfectly again. The company received a bill for $50,000 from the engineer for his service. They demanded an itemized accounting of his charges. The engineer responded briefly: One chalk mark $1 Knowing where to put it, $49,999. It was paid in full and the engineer retired again in peace.

The Ten Commandments for C Programmers

1. Thou shalt run lint frequently and study its pronouncements with care, for verily its perception and judgement oft exceed thine.
2. Thou shalt not follow the NULL pointer, for chaos and madness await thee at its end.
3. Thou shalt cast all function arguments to the expected type if they are not of that type already, even when thou art convinced that this is unnecessary, lest they take cruel vengeance upon thee when thou least expect it.
4. If thy header files fail to declare the return types of thy library functions, thou shalt declare them thyself with the most meticulous care, lest grievous harm befall thy program.
5. Thou shalt check the array bounds of all strings (indeed, all arrays), for surely where thou typest ``foo'' someone someday shall type ``supercalifragilisticexpialidocious''.
6. If a function be advertised to return an error code in the event of difficulties, thou shalt check for that code, yea, even though the checks triple the size of thy code and produce aches in thy typing fingers, for if thou thinkest ``it cannot happen to me'', the gods shall surely punish thee for thy arrogance.
7. Thou shalt study thy libraries and strive not to re-invent them without cause, that thy code may be short and readable and thy days pleasant and productive.
8. Thou shalt make thy program's purpose and structure clear to thy fellow man by using the One True Brace Style, even if thou likest it not, for thy creativity is better used in solving problems than in creating beautiful new impediments to understanding.
9. Thy external identifiers shall be unique in the first six characters, though this harsh discipline be irksome and the years of its necessity stretch before thee seemingly without end, lest thou tear thy hair out and go mad on that fateful day when thou desirest to make thy program run on an old system.
10. Thou shalt foreswear, renounce, and abjure the vile heresy which claimeth that ``All the world's a VAX'', and have no commerce with the benighted heathens who cling to this barbarous belief, that the days of thy program may be long even though the days of thy current machine be short.

A Programmer and an Engineer

A Programmer and an Engineer are sitting next to each other on a long flight from LA to NY.  The Programmer leans over to the Engineer and asks if he would like to play a fun game. The Engineer just wants to take a nap, so he politely declines and rolls over to the window to catch a few winks. The Programmer persists and explains that the game is real easy and a lot of fun. He explains "I ask you a question and if you don't know the answer, you pay me $5. Then you ask me a question and if I don't know the answer, I'll pay you $5."
Again, the Engineer politely declines and tries to get to sleep. The Programmer, now somewhat agitated, says, "OK, if you don't know the answer you pay me $5, and if I don't know the answer, I'll pay you$50!  "This catches the Engineer's attention, and he sees no end to this torment unless he plays, so he agrees to the game.
The Programmer asks the first question. "What's the distance from the earth to the moon?" The Engineer doesn't say a word, but reaches into his wallet, pulls out a five dollar bill and hands it to the Programmer.  Now, it's the Engineer's turn. He asks the Programmer "What goes up a hill with three legs, and comes down on four?"  The Programmer looks up at him with a puzzled look. He takes out his laptop computer and searches all of his references. He taps into the Airphone with his modem and searches the net and the Library of Congress.  Frustrated, he sends e-mail to his co-workers -- all to no avail.  After about an hour, he wakes the Engineer and hands him $50. The Engineer politely takes the $50 and turns away to try to get back to sleep. The Programmer, more than a little miffed, shakes the Engineer and asks, "Well, so what's the answer?"  Without a word, the Engineer reaches into his wallet, hands the Programmer $5, and turns away to get back to sleep.