My ten favourite programming jokes

Classic programming jokes, and their cultural value

In this talk, Peter will share his favourite programming jokes. Some of them are even funny. What’s more, Peter is going to explain them all properly, which is probably why he doesn’t get invited to parties. In the middle of serious explanations and actually-funny variations of standard jokes, attendees will discover the serious side to programmer humour. Attendees will cringe at old jokes, laugh at new ones, and learn about how programming jokes form a critical part of our shared cultural identity.

Transcript

1. @PeterHilton http://hilton.org.uk/ My ten favourite programming jokes
2. ⚠ WARNING Not everyone has heard all of these jokes before. Be nice. Be welcoming. 2 @PeterHilton •
3. xkcd.com/1053
4. 1. Lightbulb jokes
5. @PeterHilton • How many programmers does it take to change a lightbulb? None. It’s a hardware problem. 5
6. @PeterHilton • How many Prolog programmers does it take to change a lightbulb? false. 6
7. 2. 10 kinds of people
8. @PeterHilton • There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary, 
 and those who don’t. 8
9. @PeterHilton • There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary, 
 those who don’t and those who weren’t expecting 
 a base 3 joke 9
10. @PeterHilton • 11111111: ‘Hey, are you feeling okay?’ 11111011: ‘I’m feeling a bit o ff .’ 
 
 
 
 Cassidy @cassidoo 10
11. 3. You have a problem
12. @PeterHilton • You have a problem, and you think you can solve it using regular expressions. Now you have two problems. 12
13. @PeterHilton • You have a problem, and you think you can solve it using object-relational mapping. Now you have n+1 problems. 13
14. @PeterHilton • The doctor looked at 
 the computer and said, ‘I’m sorry, it’s terminal.’ 
 
 
 Jen Gentleman @JenMsft 14
15. 4. Ghandi on Java
16. @PeterHilton • What do you think of object-oriented programming in Java? I think it would be a good idea. 
 
 
 Peter Hilton 16
17. @PeterHilton • Knock knock! Who’s there? Java! 17
18. @PeterHilton • Java is a DSL 
 for turning XML into 
 stack traces 18
19. @PeterHilton • C combines the power of assembler with the readability of assembler 19
20. @PeterHilton • What’s yellow and dangerous? *((int * )rand()) = 0 x ffff00; 20
21. 5. The infinite monkey theorem
22. @PeterHilton • If you put a million monkeys at a million keyboards, one of them will eventually write a Java program. The rest of them will write Perl programs. 22
23. 6. Bar jokes
24. @PeterHilton • A QA engineer walks into a bar. Orders a beer. Orders 0 beers. Orders 999999999 beers. Orders a lizard. Orders −1 beers. Orders a sfdeljknesv. 24
25. @PeterHilton • First real customer walks in and 
 asks where the bathroom is. The bar bursts into fl ames, 
 killing everyone. 
 
 @brenankeller 25
26. 7. Computer games
27. @PeterHilton • Programmers love computer games because they get to experience performing a task from start to fi nish without the requirements changing 27
28. 8. Enterprise software
29. @PeterHilton • There are exactly 
 two kinds of 
 user interface: Word and Excel 29
30. @PeterHilton • She’s a 10 but 
 Excel thinks 
 she’s October 
 
 
 sophie @netcapgirl 30
31. @PeterHilton • If MS-DOS was so good, where is MS-TRES? 
 
 
 
 Ashi Windsor @NotHayashi 31
32. 9. Two hard problems
33. @PeterHilton • There are only two hard things in computer science: cache invalidation and 
 naming things. 
 
 Phil Karlton 33
34. @PeterHilton • There are two hard problems in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and o ff -by-one errors 
 
 Leon Bambrick @secretGeek 34
35. @PeterHilton • There are only two hard problems in distributed systems: 2. Exactly-once delivery 1. Guaranteed order of messages 2. Exactly-once delivery @MathiasVerraes 35
36. @PeterHilton • There’s two hard problems 
 in computer science: we only have one joke 
 and it’s not funny 
 
 Phillip Bowden @pbowden 36
37. 10. Programming puns
38. @PeterHilton • Why can’t journalists fi nd out why development projects fail? Because the programmers refuse to comment. 38
39. @PeterHilton • I visited the opticians after I started seeing printers, keyboards and mice 
 out the corner of my eye. She said it was just peripheral vision. 
 
 @ChrisOldwood 39
40. @PeterHilton • In distributed systems you’re 
 screwed if you don’t have caches but 
 if you do, you’ll screw them up. This is known as a cache-22. 
 
 @PeterSeibel 40
41. @PeterHilton • I had an argument with a coworker 
 about what variable names 
 we should use in for loops i won 
 
 Lou Creemers @lovelacecoding 41
42. Jokes explained
43. @PeterHilton • ‘you can look at the Web as consisting of two basic forms of knowledge: the database and the joke’ David Weinberger, Small Pieces Loosely Joined 43
44. The punchline There aren’t really very many programming jokes The best ones are usually variations on a standard joke Each technology has a standard joke everyone should know Standard jokes are class competence checks We can choose between gatekeeping and welcoming each new community member by celebrating their first time 44 @PeterHilton •
45. @PeterHilton • The hardest problem in computer science 
 is not being an opinionated jerk about everything 45
46. @PeterHilton http://hilton.org.uk/ http://hilton.org.uk/presentations/jokes The importance of programming jokes: https://hilton.org.uk/blog/domain-jokes.html