Intentional Programming

Date: 2004-01-26 05:13 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] seattlesque.livejournal.com
Hmmm, how did this post slip under my radar?
The internet morphing around me at a ridiculous pace, as if I have fallen into a black hole.
Or I'm waking up from suspended animation...

A Joke:

There once was a Year 2000 remediation specialist. He was considered a top gun, the Fred Astaire of the Y2K dance floor. He combed through code efficiently and quickly. For almost two years, he moved from contract to ever-more-profitable contract. He made a considerable fortune for his efforts.

His reputation was such that he felt he should put his money where his mouth was, so to speak. In the fall of 1999, he built a suspended animation chamber (oh, humour me, it's a joke). He programmed a subroutine into a client's machine which would release him from the chamber remotely on Jan. 1, 2000. He climbed into the chamber and sealed it.

It seemed like only an instant later that the chamber opened to a crush of reporters. Glaring lights and video cameras were thrust in his face. A young man - whom aides were addressing as "Mr. President" - who bore a striking resemblance to Bill Gates stood over him.

"It worked!" the programmer shouted. "It's the Year 2000!"

"Well, no, actually," the president replied with a nervous giggle. "Actually, none of your remediation efforts worked. You've been in suspended animation for nearly 8,000 years."

The programmer was speechless. His mouth opened and closed like a fish trying to breathe on dry land. Finally, he managed to sputter, "What's with the big reception, then?"

The president paused. "Well," he began, again with the nervous giggle, "It's November 9998. The Year 10000 is just around the corner, and we hear you know a little Cobol."

Re: Intentional Programming

Date: 2004-01-26 05:15 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] seattlesque.livejournal.com
Oh, I didn't say this explicitly, but perhaps given all the weirdness I should.
I was the lead of system architecture on intentional programming in its later years at MSR:

http://www.phred.org/~brian/

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