Fun_People Archive
11 Sep
The Fab Five -- John, Paul, George, Ringo, & Ken (Thompson)

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Wed, 11 Sep 96 15:49:06 -0700
To: Fun_People
Subject: The Fab Five -- John, Paul, George, Ringo, & Ken (Thompson)

[If you didn't play rock and roll in the 60s, and work on UNIX systems in  
the 70s, you may not find this as funny as I do... pity... -psl]


Forwarded-by: kerryp@sirius.com (Kerry E. Parker)
Forwarded-by: ngreen@centerview.com (Nigel Green)


  Eleanor Rigby
  -------------
Eleanor Rigby
Sits at the keyboard and waits for a line on the screen
Lives in a dream
Waits for a signal
Finding some code that will make the machine do some more.
What is it for?

All the lonely users, where do they all come from?
All the lonely users, why does it take so long?

Guru MacKenzie
Typing the lines of a program that no one will run;
Isn't it fun?
Look at him working,
Munching some chips as he waits for the code to compile;
It takes a while...

All the lonely users, where do they all come from?
All the lonely users, why does it take so long?

Eleanor Rigby
Crashes the system and loses 6 hours of work;
Feels like a jerk.
Guru MacKenzie
Wiping the crumbs off the keys as he types in the code;
Nothing will load.

All the lonely users, where do they all come from?
All the lonely users, why does it take so long?


  Unix Man
  --------
He's a real UNIX Man
Sitting in his UNIX LAN
Making all his UNIX .plans
For nobody.

Knows the blocksize from du(1)
Cares not where /dev/null goes to
Isn't he a bit like you
And me?

UNIX Man, please listen(2)
My lpd(8) is missin'
UNIX Man
The wo-o-o-orld is at(1) your command.

He's as wise as he can be
Uses lex and yacc and C
UNIX Man, can you help me
At all?

UNIX Man, don't worry
Test with time(1), don't hurry
UNIX Man
The new kernel boots, just like you had planned.

He's a real UNIX Man
Sitting in his UNIX LAN
Making all his UNIX .plans
For nobody ...
Making all his UNIX .plans
For nobody.


  Write in C
  ----------
When I find my code in tons of trouble,
Friends and colleagues come to me,
Speaking words of wisdom:
"Write in C."

As the deadline fast approaches,
And bugs are all that I can see,
Somewhere, someone whispers:
"Write in C."

Write in C, Write in C,
Write in C, oh, Write in C.
LOGO's dead and buried,
Write in C.

I used to write a lot of FORTRAN,
For science it worked flawlessly.
Try using it for graphics!
Write in C.

If you've just spent nearly 30 hours,
Debugging some assembly,
Soon you will be glad to
Write in C.

Write in C, Write in C,
Write in C, yeah, Write in C.
BASIC's not the answer.
Write in C.

Write in C, Write in C
Write in C, oh, Write in C.
Pascal won't quite cut it.
Write in C.


  Something
  ---------
Something in the way it fails,
Defies the algorithm's logic!
Something in the way it coredumps...

I don't want to leave it now
I'll fix this problem somehow

Somewhere in the memory I know,
A pointer's got to be corrupted.
Stepping in the debugger will show me...

I don't want to leave it now
I'm too close to leave it now

You're asking me can this code go?
I don't know, I don't know...
What sequence causes it to blow?
I don't know, I don't know...

Something in the initializing code?
And all I have to do is think of it!
Something in the listing will show me...

I don't want to leave it now
I'll fix this tonight I vow!

© 1996 Peter Langston