Jokes in Code Comments
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Do you ever stick jokes in code comments through shear boredom or in the vein hope that one day, 2 years from now, the poor sop stuck with refactoring your code will get a tiny smile in his otherwise potentially painful day?
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
Since no one will ever read my code but me, no. But when I did this for a living, I did it all the time! :-D I must say, though, that I am not the Master of this art; that was Gary Diehl, an engineer at General Dynamics I worked with once. We built military hardware there - missiles, primarily - and that stuff is always delivered with loads of paper. Manuals for support techs were big things, hundreds of pages long and printed on D-size paper. Gary was convinced that no one really ever read them so, in the manual for one of the Sparrow-series missiles, he wrote 3 or 4 pages of long jokes and buried them in the document. That 5 years or so before I went to work for the company, and by the time I left, no one had ever mentioned them. Apparently he was right, and no one ever reads the things. But I hope that over the years that manual and those pages served to brighten many a sailor's day. :laugh:
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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Do you ever stick jokes in code comments through shear boredom or in the vein hope that one day, 2 years from now, the poor sop stuck with refactoring your code will get a tiny smile in his otherwise potentially painful day?
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
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Do you ever stick jokes in code comments through shear boredom or in the vein hope that one day, 2 years from now, the poor sop stuck with refactoring your code will get a tiny smile in his otherwise potentially painful day?
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
Standalone jokes or smartarse comments about the code? The former - never, the latter - very rarely. You want arguably the weirdest comment, google for "riplvb".
Cheers, Vikram. (Got my troika of CCCs!)
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Do you ever stick jokes in code comments through shear boredom or in the vein hope that one day, 2 years from now, the poor sop stuck with refactoring your code will get a tiny smile in his otherwise potentially painful day?
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
No. That wouldn't be the adult thing to do. From your question, I'm guessing you do.
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith
As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
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That means you completely ignore the quality of code, around here... :-D
If the Lord God Almighty had consulted me before embarking upon the Creation, I would have recommended something simpler. -- Alfonso the Wise, 13th Century King of Castile.
This is going on my arrogant assumptions. You may have a superb reason why I'm completely wrong. -- Iain Clarke
[My articles] -
Do you ever stick jokes in code comments through shear boredom or in the vein hope that one day, 2 years from now, the poor sop stuck with refactoring your code will get a tiny smile in his otherwise potentially painful day?
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
Chris Maunder wrote:
Do you ever stick jokes in code comments
No.
Kevin
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Do you ever stick jokes in code comments through shear boredom or in the vein hope that one day, 2 years from now, the poor sop stuck with refactoring your code will get a tiny smile in his otherwise potentially painful day?
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
Not outright jokes, but there is humor occasionally:
enum ErrorDefinitions {
//...
\_ErrorPSI\_Marker, // insert new definitions above this marker; // DO NOT REMOVE THE MARKER, // LEST YE ANGER THE ELDER GODS};
Software Zen:
delete this;
Fold With Us![^] -
Do you ever stick jokes in code comments through shear boredom or in the vein hope that one day, 2 years from now, the poor sop stuck with refactoring your code will get a tiny smile in his otherwise potentially painful day?
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
Nice idea! Didn't thought of that... but surely will now ;)
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Do you ever stick jokes in code comments through shear boredom or in the vein hope that one day, 2 years from now, the poor sop stuck with refactoring your code will get a tiny smile in his otherwise potentially painful day?
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
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Do you ever stick jokes in code comments through shear boredom or in the vein hope that one day, 2 years from now, the poor sop stuck with refactoring your code will get a tiny smile in his otherwise potentially painful day?
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
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Do you ever stick jokes in code comments through shear boredom or in the vein hope that one day, 2 years from now, the poor sop stuck with refactoring your code will get a tiny smile in his otherwise potentially painful day?
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
No, but I like the two heterographs you included in your post. :) At work, I (sometimes) see check-in comments tinged with humor. /ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
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Do you ever stick jokes in code comments through shear boredom or in the vein hope that one day, 2 years from now, the poor sop stuck with refactoring your code will get a tiny smile in his otherwise potentially painful day?
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
Always. Cause most of my code is a joke by itself :) I used to joke around at my former work place. And bad ones too. But that was because I hated the bastards. Now I don't do it. Maybe a slight pinch now and then such as:
public int SetJulianDatePosition(int position)//expects 69:)
I bug
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Do you ever stick jokes in code comments through shear boredom or in the vein hope that one day, 2 years from now, the poor sop stuck with refactoring your code will get a tiny smile in his otherwise potentially painful day?
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
Frequently. Most recently with many a sarcastic comment in some terribly written code. My first was when I was first learning the noble art of code - COBOL no less. As part of the course I was sent on to learn COBOL, we had to write a small program (time dims the exact requirements, but we HAD to use at least one GOTO! So I wrote an entire program based on Monopoly. Understand it didn't play the game, but I had paragraphs called "ItsYourBirthdayCollect10Pounds", variables called OldKentRoad and Mayfair and (of course) a label "JAIL" just so I could have my compulsory GOTO read GOTO JAIL followed by a comment of "Go directly to jail, do not pass GO do not collect 200) I passed.
___________________________________________ .\\axxx (That's an 'M')
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Do you ever stick jokes in code comments through shear boredom or in the vein hope that one day, 2 years from now, the poor sop stuck with refactoring your code will get a tiny smile in his otherwise potentially painful day?
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
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Do you ever stick jokes in code comments through shear boredom or in the vein hope that one day, 2 years from now, the poor sop stuck with refactoring your code will get a tiny smile in his otherwise potentially painful day?
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
Does leaving sarcastic error messages for the users count? Would have been funny if they had been picked up in testing and/or QA, but alas; the users didn't think they were so funny.... :laugh:
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Do you ever stick jokes in code comments through shear boredom or in the vein hope that one day, 2 years from now, the poor sop stuck with refactoring your code will get a tiny smile in his otherwise potentially painful day?
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
Not really, although I try to inject a little humour now and then when the opportunity arises, because I find reading source code written by others to be more enjoyable and relaxing when they do the same. :) It doesn't really count, but when I was tutoring Java programming to some beginning students in uni, I told one of the guys that slightly more comments (than none) might be helpful, at least when complicated things were happening. In the next mini-assignment he and his partner submitted code which looked like:
if(obvious condition 1) // Don't know what this does
a;
else if(obvious condition 2) // Don't know what this does
b;
else if(obvious condition 3) // Don't know what this does
c;
else
// Don't know what it does. I think it's some kind of fake breast for fathers...
d; -
Not really, although I try to inject a little humour now and then when the opportunity arises, because I find reading source code written by others to be more enjoyable and relaxing when they do the same. :) It doesn't really count, but when I was tutoring Java programming to some beginning students in uni, I told one of the guys that slightly more comments (than none) might be helpful, at least when complicated things were happening. In the next mini-assignment he and his partner submitted code which looked like:
if(obvious condition 1) // Don't know what this does
a;
else if(obvious condition 2) // Don't know what this does
b;
else if(obvious condition 3) // Don't know what this does
c;
else
// Don't know what it does. I think it's some kind of fake breast for fathers...
d;Had a friend at Northrop Grumman on JSTARS post a comment in his code "If you ever get here, your F*&Ked". A few years later, a Govie did a search for bad words. Good thing the programmer was one of the top WizBangs on the program, else he would have been fired. He was just given a repremand!
The Irishman
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Do you ever stick jokes in code comments through shear boredom or in the vein hope that one day, 2 years from now, the poor sop stuck with refactoring your code will get a tiny smile in his otherwise potentially painful day?
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
From the project I'm working on right now: // Lieferanten gibt es nur in XML oder Vanille which means: Vendor (data) only comes in XML or plain vanilla
A while ago he asked me what he should have printed on my business cards. I said 'Wizard'. I read books which nobody else understand. Then I do something which nobody understands. After that the computer does something which nobody understands. When asked, I say things about the results which nobody understand. But everybody expects miracles from me on a regular basis. Looks to me like the classical definition of a wizard.
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Do you ever stick jokes in code comments through shear boredom or in the vein hope that one day, 2 years from now, the poor sop stuck with refactoring your code will get a tiny smile in his otherwise potentially painful day?
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
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Does leaving sarcastic error messages for the users count? Would have been funny if they had been picked up in testing and/or QA, but alas; the users didn't think they were so funny.... :laugh:
Back around 2001, I was doing some OLE Automation with Word and VB. One of the defined errors was
-9 Other Error: See Manual. So I looked it up in the manual by Microsoft and the definition given was exactly-9 Other Error: See Manual. Since our practice was to catch and handle each error type, the message I gave to the user wasRTFM - Other Error. Contact Technical Support.A couple of months later I had a user call me with the RTFM error. I had to mute the phone cause I couldn't stop laughing.