pepper@ncuug.UUCP (Angeli Wahlstedt) (07/08/90)
I am posting this on basis of my friend....he is writing a book on
"easter eggs" (which will be explained below), and if anyone knows about
one, he would like to hear about it. You can send e-mail to me, and I will
forward them to him, or leave your replies here on the net -- I'll keep
monitoring the groups.
--------------------------------------------------
I am writing a book listing "Easter Eggs." I'd be sincerely
grateful for any contributions you might be able to make.
What are Easter Eggs? Easter Eggs are little undocumented
"goodies" that programmers hide in their programs. For
example:
In a beta version of "HAL," a Lotus 1-2-3 add-in for the IBM,
if you typed in "Open the pod bay doors, HAL," the program
would respond "I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that."
In "Karateka," a martial arts game for the Apple, if you
booted the back side of the disk, the game would come up
-down and mirror-image.
Likewise, in "Ultima V" for the Apple, yelling "flip-flop"
would invert the screen.
The Mac SE ROMs contain a digitized picture of the
development team.
...and so on. Please send any other Easter Eggs of which you
are aware to me on Compuserve (76004,2654) or by mail to:
Easter Eggs
Cliff Dirgo
417 East County Road 66E
Fort Collins, CO 80524
Any system is fair game - IBM, Apple, Mac, Atari,
Commodore, Nintendo, whatever! Any neat undocumented
feature is applicable. When in doubt, send it off to me.
Please try to list the version of the software and what
exactly it takes to bring up the Easter Egg. If all you have is a
rumor, though, that will work, too.
P.S. I think this would also make an excellent thread
somewhere.
Thank you!!!
--------------------------------------------------
Angeli "Ms. Pepper" Wahlstedt
...!uunet!ccncsu!ncuug!pepper
...!uunet!isis!nyx!awahlsted
ms-pepper@cup.portal.combob@MorningStar.Com (07/08/90)
The GNU Emacs distribution includes an implementation of the old Eliza LISP "psychoanalyst". It contains special cases for analyzing anyone who acts like Zippy the Pinhead, a cartoon character by Bill Griffith. A dialogue excerpt: yow Yow! Are we interactive yet? yow Did you ever regret you are a pinhead?
dbell@cup.portal.com (David J Bell) (07/09/90)
Easter Eggs, huh? Cute name... One that comes to mind is in Hewlett Packard's workstation BASIC, we were scanning the binary code one day, looking for I don't remember what, when I spotted the string "XYZZY". That looks familiar, I mumbled; what if I tried it as a command? Sure enough, instead of the expected "Syntax Error", it responded "I see no caves here." Rumor has it that some (one or more?) of HP's instruments reacted the same way when commanded XYZZY over the bus... Dave dbell@cup.portal.com
meissner@osf.org (Michael Meissner) (07/10/90)
In article <31567@cup.portal.com> dbell@cup.portal.com (David J Bell) writes: | Easter Eggs, huh? Cute name... | | One that comes to mind is in Hewlett Packard's workstation BASIC, | we were scanning the binary code one day, looking for I don't | remember what, when I spotted the string "XYZZY". That looks | familiar, I mumbled; what if I tried it as a command? Sure enough, | instead of the expected "Syntax Error", it responded "I see no caves here." | | Rumor has it that some (one or more?) of HP's instruments reacted | the same way when commanded XYZZY over the bus... | | Dave dbell@cup.portal.com Data General's AOS/VS command line interpretter also had an XYZZY command (XYZZY was the codename for AOS/VS before it was announced). Unlike all other commands in the CLI, xyzzy searched for a user CLI script first before doing the standard action (in the CLI of the time, you normally could not override the standard commands with your own macros). The standard action was to print out "Nothing happens". The OS group implemented an XYZZY CLI script on their machines which would use one of the 10 builtin variables as an index, so it would print a different message the first 32 times it was invoked. Cheap thrills... -- Michael Meissner email: meissner@osf.org phone: 617-621-8861 Open Software Foundation, 11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA Do apple growers tell their kids money doesn't grow on bushes?
bwb@sei.cmu.edu (Bruce Benson) (07/10/90)
In article <31567@cup.portal.com> dbell@cup.portal.com (David J Bell) writes: >Easter Eggs, huh? Cute name... > >One that comes to mind is in Hewlett Packard's workstation BASIC, >we were scanning the binary code one day, looking for I don't >remember what, when I spotted the string "XYZZY". That looks >familiar, I mumbled; what if I tried it as a command? Sure enough, >instead of the expected "Syntax Error", it responded "I see no caves here." > >Rumor has it that some (one or more?) of HP's instruments reacted >the same way when commanded XYZZY over the bus... Heathkit's HDOS would respond to "set system stand-alone" (or something close) with "It is now pitch dark and if you continue you will likely fall into a pit" (can't remember the *exact* sentence - thou I played it zillions of times). Interestingly, the only program that ever required this system command was the Software Toolworks Adventure game.... * Bruce Benson + Internet - bwb@sei.cmu.edu + + * Software Engineering Institute + Compuserv - 76226,3407 + >--|> * Carnegie Mellon University + Voice - 412 268 8496 + + * Pittsburgh PA 15213-3890 + + US Air Force
smithwik@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov (R. Michael Smithwick -- FSN) (07/10/90)
[] Some more "Easter Eggs" . . . Early versions of Amigados (1.0 to 1.2) had all sorts of little secret messages stashed this way and that among the code. I don't remember the exact instructions for bringing them up, but they all required a tricky set of actions to ensure that no-one brought them up accidently. For example, I believe that if you held down both shift keys AND both "Amiga" keys at the same time, then by hitting the function keys you would bring up credits in the menu-bar, giving the names of the original design team. In the preferences setting tool, there was an icon representing the Amiga's mouse (for setting double-click speed). By hitting the image's left and right mouse button a certain way, then scrolling through the list of available printer drivers several times, the phrase "RJ loves Caryn" would appear in the menu bar. RJ Mical desiged the user-interface toolbox and he met his wife, Caryn, while working for Amiga. Perhaps the most interesting one required the user to (I think) hold down both the Amiga keys and shift keys, while the mouse pointer was positioned over one of the screen icons. Then while still holding down the buttons, the user had to eject the disk from the internal drive. The phrase "we built Amiga, Commodore f***ed it up" would appear in the menu bar. 100,000s of Amiga 500s and 2000s were shipped with the 1.2 ROMs that contained this nasty (but funny) quote. I was talking to RJ some time ago, and he said that there where many other messages that no-one knew about. Also in the Amiga community, there was a popular program published by NewTek out of Kansas. Someone disassembled it and found the phrase that said something like "If you are reading this text, NewTek might want you to do some assembly programming for them. Call . . . ." In one of the games for Atari's Lynx hand-held game box (forgot which game), the programmers had alot of extra space, so by typing in a code you could bypass the game and start up a Mandelbrot generator. Any opinions are my own since nobody else would ever want them. "Lisa! You make it sound like butt-kissing is something to be ashamed of!" Homer Simpson.
toma@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Tom Almy) (07/11/90)
The TECO text editor (popular on DEC machines years ago) could be invoked via several different names depending on if you wanted to edit, create, examine, or execute the file. If you told it to create the file "love" the command was "make love" and TECO would respond, "not war?" This was a standard joke on every TECO implementation I ever saw (one of them was broken and wouldn't actually create the file!). Tom Almy toma@tekgvs.labs.tek.com Standard Disclaimers Apply
mlewis@unocss.unomaha.edu (mlewis) (07/11/90)
From article <31567@cup.portal.com>, by dbell@cup.portal.com (David J Bell): > remember what, when I spotted the string "XYZZY". That looks > familiar, I mumbled; what if I tried it as a command? Sure enough, > instead of the expected "Syntax Error", it responded "I see no caves here." Data General's AOS and AOS/VS CLI (Command Line Interpreter) responds to XYZZY with a simple 'nothing happens' This might get better responses in alt.folklore.computers, since it was discussed about 6 months ago. Marc -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Na khuya mne ehto gavno? | Internet: cs057@zeus.unomaha.edu preferred machine->| UUCP: uunet!mcmi!unocss!mlewis ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
schraag@fwi.uva.nl (Joost Schraag (I81)) (07/11/90)
in early releases of MacPaint version 2.0, if you held down TAB and SPACEBAR while choosing the Menu-item "About MacPaint ..." (part of) the Zebra Lady was shown. in later releases this was removed, partly because this picture was copyrighted, part because people in high places were not to happy about these kind of undocumented features. have a nice day, joost. -- ____________________________________________________________________________ Joost Schraag X University of Amsterdam X e-mail: schraag@fwi.uva.nl The Netherlands X or: schraag%fwi.uva.nl@hp4nl.nluug.nl
nick@lfcs.ed.ac.uk (Nick Rothwell) (07/11/90)
In article <1134@carol.fwi.uva.nl>, schraag@fwi (Joost Schraag (I81)) writes: >in early releases of MacPaint version 2.0, if you held down >TAB and SPACEBAR while choosing the Menu-item "About MacPaint ..." >(part of) the Zebra Lady was shown. >in later releases this was removed, partly because this picture >was copyrighted, part because people in high places were not to >happy about these kind of undocumented features. Ah yes, the Zebra Lady. She was fired across the net in resource file form for an hour or two before the clamps came down. With the original release of the Mac MultiFinder (with system 5), if you hit a certain key combination you wouldn't get the usual "About MultiFinder" window, but instead a long scrolling list of credits (mostly humorous). The original had all the character names in full (Zippy the Pinhead etc), the version released had most of them crossed out (Zxxxx the Pxxxxxx etc). Nick. -- Nick Rothwell, Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science, Edinburgh. nick@lfcs.ed.ac.uk <Atlantic Ocean>!mcsun!ukc!lfcs!nick ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ Ich weiss jetzt was kein Engel weiss
tjc@castle.ed.ac.uk (A J Cunningham) (07/11/90)
In article <5120@castle.ed.ac.uk> nick@lfcs.ed.ac.uk (Nick Rothwell) writes: >With the original release of the Mac MultiFinder (with system 5), if >you hit a certain key combination you wouldn't get the usual "About >MultiFinder" window, but instead a long scrolling list of credits >(mostly humorous). The original had all the character names in >full (Zippy the Pinhead etc), the version released had most of >them crossed out (Zxxxx the Pxxxxxx etc). The releases of MacsBug in the 5.? range had the first 512 bytes of the disk file filled with the names of all those who had contributed to the development of the product. In version six someone with no sense of humour had filled the space with spaces :-( Just goes to show the lack of humour of people with suits and ties :-) Tony -- Tony Cunningham, Edinburgh University Computing Service. tjc@castle.ed.ac.uk If a man among you has no sin upon his hand Let him throw a stone at me for playing in the band.
steve@taumet.com (Stephen Clamage) (07/11/90)
This may not be exactly an Easter Egg, since it is not designed in, but falls out: On a Unix system, get someone to type in: got a light? The most usual response is No match. (The shell tries to find a 6-character file name whose first 5 characters are 'light' and reports there isn't one. There are several complicated reasons why you might not get this response.) -- Steve Clamage, TauMetric Corp, steve@taumet.com
alanj@nevermore.WV.TEK.COM (Alan Jeddeloh;685-2991;61-201;292-9740;orca) (07/12/90)
In the Tektronix 1240 Logic Analyzer, if you hold down some combination
of the front panel buttons when you turn on the power, the screen displays
the names of the project team members. Sorry, I don't remember the
combination.
-Alan Jeddeloh (503) 685-2991
Tektronix ITD Networking; D/S 60-180; PO Box 1000; Wilsonville, OR 97070
UUCP: {decvax|ucbvax}!tektronix!orca!nevermore!alanj
INTERNET: alanj@nevermore.wv.tek.com Quoth the printer, "Nevermore!"jacka@aspen.IAG.HP.COM (Jack C. Armstrong) (07/12/90)
On many of the Burroughs scientific computers, starting with the B5000, entering 'EI' on the operator's console yields the instant response 'EIO'. (As in old McDonald had a ...) I'm told the console driver was the first implemented, and this was a simple test.
buckland@cheddar.ucs.ubc.ca (Tony Buckland) (07/12/90)
In article <7627@orca.wv.tek.com> alanj@nevermore.WV.TEK.COM (Alan Jeddeloh) writes:
Let me put this as a trivia question for people who have seen the
modern classic movies on a theme dear to our hearts.
Given that we had a duplex (two large boxes like the guardians
of a temple avenue [there's a clue in there]) machine at the
time (a few years after I started work, i.e. before some of you were
out of kindergarten), why did I reward a certain illegal parameter
setting with the message ``There is another system"?howell@bert.llnl.gov (Louis Howell) (07/12/90)
In article <8639@ubc-cs.UUCP>, buckland@cheddar.ucs.ubc.ca (Tony Buckland) writes: |>In article <7627@orca.wv.tek.com> alanj@nevermore.WV.TEK.COM (Alan Jeddeloh) writes: |> Let me put this as a trivia question for people who have seen the |> modern classic movies on a theme dear to our hearts. |> Given that we had a duplex (two large boxes like the guardians |> of a temple avenue [there's a clue in there]) machine at the |> time (a few years after I started work, i.e. before some of you were |> out of kindergarten), why did I reward a certain illegal parameter |> setting with the message ``There is another system"? I'll bite. The reference is to the movie "Colossus: The Forbin Project". At the point in the movie where Colossus deduces the existence of Guardian, it refuses to cooperate with the humans and keeps flashing ``There is another system'' on all of the screens. Afraid I can't guess just which illegal parameter setting you use to trigger this, though. Been years since I've seen the movie, and that was in the middle of an SF marathon so I wasn't exactly watching for every detail. We'll know we've got a working associative memory when it can trigger on connections like this as fast as a human. Another trivia question. If you type P1 to your shell, how *should* it respond? Louis Howell #include <std.disclaimer>
jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens) (07/12/90)
In article <64470@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV>, howell@bert.llnl.gov (Louis Howell) writes: |> Another trivia question. If you type P1 to your shell, how *should* it |> respond? oolcay itay. Jonathan Kamens USnail: MIT Project Athena 11 Ashford Terrace jik@Athena.MIT.EDU Allston, MA 02134 Office: 617-253-8495 Home: 617-782-0710
richard@fwi.uva.nl (Richard Carels) (07/12/90)
In WriteNow version 2.2 for the Macintosh, do an Option click on the about box
and watch what happens: In a 40-second animation the about box is changed by
a lot of tiny men to give credits to several people.
This really is the best about box I have ever seen!
Richard Carels, University of Amsterdam Email:
Computer Science Department richard@fwi.uva.nl
Macintosh Kruislaan 409 richard%fwi.uva.nl@hp4nl.nluug.nl
systems manager 1098 SJ AMSTERDAM Applelink: HOL0070dbell@cup.portal.com (David J Bell) (07/12/90)
This is a sort-of Easter Egg, in that it doesn't appear in software, or to the naked eye: Some years ago, at a Major Semiconductor Manfacturer, my wife was working as a designer, ie. layout artist... As a large IC project was drawing to a finish (it was a multiplier chip) the team of a couple of engineers and the designers made up a monogram consisting of their initials: M,C,B,O,N, and S. The rather neat part was the way they combined the initials to form the name "McBons" into a tiny rabbit, sitting up like the Easter bunny... Of course, there was *just* enough empty space near a corner pad for the design to fit into the die. Dave dbell@cup.portal.com
dbell@maths.tcd.ie (Derek Bell) (07/13/90)
Under Tops-20 (I think) 'goto hell' would get the reply 'Get stuffed!'. The Opus disk drive for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum (Don't laugh! :-) ) had an error "Don't be a wally!" -- Derek Bell dbell%maths.tcd.ie@cunyvm.cuny.edu belld@unix1.tcd.ie belld@vax1.tcd.ie
haines@debussy.cs.colostate.edu (Matt Haines) (07/14/90)
In article <313@taumet.com> steve@taumet.com (Stephen Clamage) writes: | This may not be exactly an Easter Egg, since it is not designed in, but | falls out: On a Unix system, get someone to type in: | got a light? | The most usual response is | No match. Here is a list of some more Unix shell responses. I don't remember where I originally got it, so I can't give the proper credit. Note that the '%' prompt indicates the C shell, while the '$' prompt indicates the Bourne shell. Go ahead and try some ... ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ % rm meese-ethics rm: meese-ethics nonexistent % ar m God ar: God does not exist % "How would you rate Quayle's incompetence? Unmatched ". % ^How did the sex change^ operation go? Modifier failed. % If I had a ( for every $ the Congress spent, what would I have? Too many ('s. % make love Make: Don't know how to make love. Stop. % sleep with me bad character % got a light? No match. % man: why did you get a divorce? man:: Too many arguments. % ^What is saccharine? Bad substitute. % %blow %blow: No such job. % \(- (-: Command not found. $ PATH=pretending! /usr/ucb/which sense no sense in pretending! $ drink <bottle; opener bottle: cannot open opener: not found $ mkdir matter; cat >matter matter: cannot create ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ -- Matt Haines <haines@cs.colostate.edu> | "Don't take life too seriously ... Colorado State University, CS Dept. | nobody gets out of here alive!" 503 University Services Center | - Jim Morrison Ft. Collins, CO 80523 | (303) 491-1943 |
colin@array.UUCP (Colin Plumb) (07/16/90)
Then there's the fuck subsystem, created at the University of Waterloo on the Honeywells running GCOS, ported to Unix, expuragted by the Powers That Be, and currently living in the Computer Science Club archives. Feeling that frustrated commands such as "fuck you", "fuck gcos", "fuck the administration", "fuck MFCF" (Math Faculty Computing Facility, the owner of the relavent computers), etc., a system was created to give witty answers to most common subjets and associated probabilities of logging the person out. I believe the responses to the last two were "Gladly!" and "The administration already did!" -- -Colin
kdq@demott.COM (Kevin D. Quitt) (07/17/90)
It's been too long since I've used it, so I've forgotten the
details, but DEC database/query system was sensitive to the term
"wombat". When commanded to "describe wombat", you'd get a paragraph or
two about the lovely little critter.
This was also a supported feature, since when DEC made graphics
terminals available, the "show wombat" command would display a (crude
but recognizable) picture of a wombat.
As I say, it's been a while - check with a current DEC-type for
the appropriate details.
--
_
Kevin D. Quitt demott!kdq kdq@demott.com
DeMott Electronics Co. 14707 Keswick St. Van Nuys, CA 91405-1266
VOICE (818) 988-4975 FAX (818) 997-1190 MODEM (818) 997-4496 PEP last
96.37% of all statistics are made up.ted@isgtec.UUCP (Ted Richards) (07/17/90)
When I was at the word-processor company AES, I was told that their first product (the AES-90, I think), had a copy of the Game of Life embedded in the ROM. Don't know how you started it, though. -- Ted Richards ...uunet!utai!lsuc!isgtec!ted ted@isgtec.UUCP ISG Technologies Inc. 3030 Orlando Dr. Mississauga Ont. Canada L4V 1S8
daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) (07/18/90)
The Commodore 128 had a very cleverly concealed message hidden in ROM. You
would type "SYS 32800,123,45,6" from BASIC, and you would get a screen with
the names of the designers and the slogan "Link arms, don't make them". It
wasn't quite as elegant as the way things are hidden these days, but it
was just about impossible to find, and the "QA" group at the time was under
orders to look for this kind of thing.
--
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests"
{uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy
"I have been given the freedom to do as I see fit" -REMherman@corpane.UUCP (Harry Herman) (07/21/90)
In <3021@unocss.unomaha.edu> mlewis@unocss.unomaha.edu (mlewis) writes: >From article <31567@cup.portal.com>, by dbell@cup.portal.com (David J Bell): >> remember what, when I spotted the string "XYZZY". That looks >> familiar, I mumbled; what if I tried it as a command? Sure enough, >> instead of the expected "Syntax Error", it responded "I see no caves here." >Data General's AOS and AOS/VS CLI (Command Line Interpreter) responds to >XYZZY with a simple 'nothing happens' >Marc Heathkit used to make an 8080 based system called the H-8. The operating system consisted of a core image and two overlay regions (originally just one overlay region). The system call dispatcher had a table of which calls were in the core and which were in the overlay(s). If an overlay was needed, the overlay was read in and the function was executed. In order to support single disk drive operation and allow you to switch disks, the command interpretter had an undocumented command to cause the operating system to load the overlay(s) permanently into memory, which naturally reduced the space available for your program. When you executed this command, the command interpretter printed "It is now pitch dark. If you proceed you will likely fall into a pit.", or something similar. In one of the later releases, they added a new system call that allowed you to load either of the overlays under program control, and either have them stay resident until the space was needed for something else, or have them become permanently resident. Of course you did not get the message if you loaded them yourself. Harry Herman herman@corpane or ..uunet!corpane!herman
bturner@hpcvlx.cv.hp.com (Bill Turner) (07/23/90)
In the HP150 ROMS, part of the escape sequence processing has a test that wasn't removed -- try typing <esc>&a? (Replies "My mind is going...") I don't know how it was activated, but once I was running a program that crashed MS Windows (ver. 2.11?), and in the process of dying a horrible death it popped up a dialog that scrolled through the names of the development team. A search on the programs and DLL's found no plain-text strings of the sort... --Bill Turner (bturner@hp-pcd.hp.com) HP Interface Technology Operation
doligez@margaux.inria.fr (Damien Doligez) (08/01/90)
On a DECstation 5000, halt UNIX to go under the ROM monitor, and type 't 5' (The t command is a test, but test number 5 is not documented) The thing starts to compute and display Mandelbrot images, at a quite impressive speed. Damien Doligez | Disclaimer : my employer has no opinion doligez@margaux.inria.fr |
bob@MorningStar.Com (Bob Sutterfield) (08/01/90)
In article <101150008@hpcvlx.cv.hp.com> bturner@hpcvlx.cv.hp.com (Bill Turner) writes:
...once I was running a program that crashed MS Windows (ver.
2.11?), and in the process of dying a horrible death it popped up a
dialog that scrolled through the names of the development team...
I think that during a "horrible death" would not be the sort of time I
would want my name in lights for the user to see. That's not the sort
of fame I want for myself :-)markh@oldcolo.UUCP (Mark Hampson) (08/06/90)
I think it is quite amazing that so many programmers are anarchists. It would seem to me that people who must work in such an orderly fashion would be straight-laced and fly right types. The diversity of systems that have Easter Eggs planted in them is limited only by the number of systems available.
mikeg@c3.c3.lanl.gov (Michael P. Gerlek) (08/07/90)
In article <26bcf4e8-214.21comp.misc-1@oldcolo.UUCP>, markh@oldcolo.UUCP (Mark Hampson) writes: > I think it is quite amazing that so many programmers are anarchists. > It would seem to me that people who must work in such an orderly fashion > would be straight-laced and fly right types. [...] Obviously you haven't worked with many programmers :-) Seriously, although this is well off the subject, a lot of people have looked into the mindset of the programmer (hacker ethic, need for control over environment, urge to fight the system on own terms, etc, etc). Programmers are pretty off-the-wall people, by and large. Psychologists love us. [ M.P.Gerlek (mikeg@lanl.gov) - [ Los Alamos Nat'l Lab / Merrimack College - [ Disclaimer: Yes, Mom, I'll play nice. - [ "My other machine's an XMP." -
steve@taumet.com (Stephen Clamage) (08/07/90)
markh@oldcolo.UUCP (Mark Hampson) writes: >I think it is quite amazing that so many programmers are anarchists. >It would seem to me that people who must work in such an orderly fashion >would be straight-laced and fly right types. You are, as a lawyer would say, assuming a fact not in evidence. Many programmers (too many, in my view) do NOT work in an orderly fashion. Hence the popularity of languages which impose few constraints on the programmer (required declarations and type checking, for example). Additionally, the work space of many a programmer could be described as looking like a rat's nest, except it would be insulting to rats. -- Steve Clamage, TauMetric Corp, steve@taumet.com
glratt@rice.edu (Glenn Forbes Larrett) (08/08/90)
>I think it is quite amazing that so many programmers are anarchists. >It would seem to me that people who must work in such an orderly fashion >would be straight-laced and fly right types. The diversity of systems >that have Easter Eggs planted in them is limited only by the number of >systems available. You completely ignore the creativity necessary to be a good programmer. True, the ability to organize information is needed, but without inspiration, without the odd "shot-in-the-dark" and trial and error from which to learn, much of the programming going on would be stuck in debugging. (Besides, Easter Eggs are fun ;-> ) Glenn Larratt glratt@uncle-bens.rice.edu Glenn Larratt glratt@uncle-bens.rice.edu Computing Resource Center OCIS, Rice University, Houston, Texas
dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt) (08/08/90)
In article <26bcf4e8-214.21comp.misc-1@oldcolo.UUCP> markh@oldcolo.UUCP (Mark Hampson) writes: > I think it is quite amazing that so many programmers are anarchists. > It would seem to me that people who must work in such an orderly fashion > would be straight-laced and fly right types. The diversity of systems > that have Easter Eggs planted in them is limited only by the number of > systems available. Ah, indeed... there lies one of the wonderful paradoxes which makes life in this business so much fun (potentially). It's true that programming requires a careful attention to detail... computers themselves have utterly no sense of humor and are extremely unforgiving. If this were the _only_ level on which programmers operated, then I'd expect that the population of programmers would self-select for the kind of straight-laced, fly-right, anal-retentive people you're envisioning... sort of like the Monty Python view of "chartered public accountancy." Fortunately (for crazies like me), there's another aspect to programming which makes things rather more lively. A large part of programming (or program design) deals with things on another level... a level of high-order abstractions, data structures, interrelations, and so forth. In order to see the "whole picture" of a programming system's design and implementation, a person must be able to go from the "castles in the air" level down to the "size of the grains of sand in the mortar" level. [This analogy isn't my own... but I can't for the life of me remember who first phrased it. Knuth??] Anyhow... in order to be able to handle this broad range of abstraction- to-concrete-implementation, a person must possess quite a bit of flexibility, a willingness to try things and [if they don't work] throw them away, a good helping of enthusiasm, and a strong respect for one's one fallability... a good sense of humor _really_ helps. A programmer without a good sense of humor, and the ability to say "Oh, what the >bleep<", will often have a very rough time of things. Most good programmers are crafts[wo]men, as much as engineers... and develop a strong sense of workmanship and pride in their tasks. Remember how the original Macintosh development team had their signatures etched into the mold for the Mac cabinet, so that they were "signing" each Macintosh as it came off the production line? That's not an uncommon sort of attitude. Also, many programmers are of a somewhat "nerdy" bent... we're better at dealing with things (computers) than with people. Programmers tend to be more comfortable with other programmers than with mundanes. Now... take people who have a strong sense of pride in their work, enthusiasm for what they're doing, strong senses of humor, and an in-group attitude. Put them in an environment where they _must_ be accurate and painstakingly careful in the forms of their work. Add the fact that their employers usually require the product to have a "professional" appearance (i.e. no sense of humor). What do you get? Well, frequently, you get a situation in which the programmers' senses of humor are under pressure from below (the humorless computer) and from above (the humorless management). So, naturally enough, the humor squirts out sideways... in the form of "Easter eggs", in-jokes buried in the code, and so forth. Sometimes it's subtle; sometimes it's as obvious as a whoopie cushion in church. It's usually there in one form or another!
beattie@visenix.UUCP (Brian Beattie) (08/09/90)
In article <MIKEG.90Aug7101217@c3.c3.lanl.gov> mikeg@c3.c3.lanl.gov (Michael P. Gerlek) writes: [ [In article <26bcf4e8-214.21comp.misc-1@oldcolo.UUCP>, [ markh@oldcolo.UUCP (Mark Hampson) writes: [ [> I think it is quite amazing that so many programmers are anarchists. [> It would seem to me that people who must work in such an orderly fashion [> would be straight-laced and fly right types. [...] [ [Obviously you haven't worked with many programmers :-) [ [Seriously, although this is well off the subject, a lot of people have [looked into the mindset of the programmer (hacker ethic, need for [control over environment, urge to fight the system on own terms, etc, [etc). Programmers are pretty off-the-wall people, by and large. [Psychologists love us. [ [[ M.P.Gerlek (mikeg@lanl.gov) - [[ Los Alamos Nat'l Lab / Merrimack College - [[ Disclaimer: Yes, Mom, I'll play nice. - [[ "My other machine's an XMP." - The thing to realize is the programming is a creative endeavor and not at all as orderly as the original posting seems to think. In fact many have commented on the similarity between design/programming and architecture if you think of programmers as being akin to architechs you might have a better insight into programming. -- Performance is not a | Brian Beattie (703)471-7552 security requirement. | 11525 Hickory Cluster, Reston, VA. 22090 A nameless | Security Architect | ...uunet!visenix!beattie