Folk Songs

Stuff I wrote long ago:

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From, obviously, the days before 1/1/2000: COBOL Lizards Ever since I was a young boy I've heeded coding's call. From APL to Fortran, I must've used 'em all. But I've never seen anything like this In any function call. Those funky MIS guys Sure wrote some strange COBOL. It's utterly unpredictable, Immune to any test. JCL starts it running, And it just does the rest. ABENDS every Thursday, It's out to break my balls. Those creepy MIS guys Sure wrote some mean COBOL. Why do you think it does it? I don't know! What makes it so slow? Don't have no specifications, I must be in hell. It's all one giant module, Debugged by sense of smell. Aren't even any comments, No comments there at all! A plague on all your houses, And your silly-ass COBOL! They were COBOL lizards, There's got to be a twist! COBOL lizards, At least it isn't Lisp! Even SmallTalk would be better, Than this undocumented crap. Written fifteen years ago, And dumped into my lap. It's not Y2K compliant, It's about to hit a wall ... Those goddamn MIS guys, Sure wrote some bad COBOL.

From a time when I managed development of a multi-platform product: Buy A Sun When I find myself in tons of trouble, There's a thought that always comes. I'm sick of all this nonsense, Buy a Sun. And when the console's frozen, And the cursor doesn't blink, And smit is therefore useless, Then I think: Buy a Sun, buy a Sun, buy a Sun, yeah, Buy a Sun. AIX ain't Unix, buy a Sun. Now, when they say "multi-platform," Then I know we're in for fun. We run on thirty systems, Buy a Sun. DEC wouldn't know a driver If it bit 'em in the ass, And did someone mention Sequent? Thanks, I'll pass. Let it run, let it run, let it run, yeah, Let it run. Then I can ship this puppy, let it run. When things that worked this morning, Stop working overnight, And we know that nothing's different, And a checksum says we're right, It's then I type init 6, Having first su'd to root, And I hold my breath in horror, Let it boot. Let it boot, let it boot, let it boot, yeah, Let it boot. HP is purely evil, let it boot. Now, I've read of web performance 'Til my eyes begin to run. "Cellular" my fanny, Buy a Sun. How many of my users, Need to render in 3-D? When IRIX dies at midnight, They'll page me. Buy a Sun, buy a Sun, buy a Sun, yeah, Buy a Sun. Not sexy but they're stable, buy a Sun.