Christopher Thompson

“Sometimes it pays to stay in bed on Monday, rather than spending the rest of the week debugging Monday’s code.”

Change a Light Bulb

Q: How many software engineers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. It’s a hardware problem.

Q: How many hardware engineers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. We’ll just work around that in the software.

Q: How many software engineers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Just one. But it takes them all night. And when they’re done, the washing machine doesn’t work right.
A: None. “We’ll document it in the manual.”
A: Two. One always leaves in the middle of the project.
A: Four. One to design the change, one to implement it, one to document it, and one to maintain it afterwards.
A: Four, plus one senior analyst to manage the project, one technical writer to correct the spelling and grammar of the one who documented it, one light bulb librarian, a sales-force of at least five to drum up enough users who want to turn the light on, 274 users to burn out the new bulb, at which point we go to tender for another light bulb change.
A: Five. Two to write the specification program, one to screw it in, and two to explain why the project was late.
A: Only one, but he’s not available till the year 2025.
A: “The change is 90% complete.”
A: “It’s hard to say. Each time we separate the bulb into its modules to do unit testing, it stops working.”
A: Of course, as everyone knows, just forty-five years ago all it took was a bunch of kids in a garage in Palo Alto to change a light bulb.
A: The light bulb works fine on the system in my office.

On Wed, 14 Jan 1998, Paul Bleisch wrote:
What are light bulbs?
On Thu, 15 Jan 1998, Steve Baker replied:
Oh dear. I wish people would RTM. . . .

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lightbulb(1)

NAME
      lightbulb - Convert electrons to photons

SYNOPSIS
      lightbulb [-wattage number]

DESCRIPTION
      lightbulb reads a stream of electrons from standard input and
      produces photons on standard output.
      Thus
 
          lightbulb <110_volts_ac >light

      The following options apply to lightbulb:

      -wattage  Sets the rate at which electrons are converted
                to photons.

FILES
      None

SEE ALSO
      xmas_tree_lights(1), streetlamp(1), led(2)

KNOWN BUGS
      lightbulb is known to fail unexpectedly after some unknown
      number of applications. Repeated complaints to the authors
      of lightbulb have failed to come up with a fix for this
      bug. The only known workaround for a crashed lightbulb is
      re-installation from a fresh copy of the source media.

NOTES
      I believe M$ Windows is based on lightbulb because they
      share the same bug - and the same workaround.

      It is important to ensure that the input stream is correctly
      formatted or the lightbulb may crash unexpectedly and with
      undefined results.

      Do not attempt to apply lightbulb's input files to other
      UNIX tools (esp. 'finger(1)'), however, lightbulb's output
      stream is fairly compatible with most other devices.

INSTALLATION
      Consult a hardware engineer.

PREREQUISITES
      Your operating system must support sockets and switches.

The Fine Print: I don’t own the copyright to any of the information on this page. It’s all stuff I found on the internet that made me laugh.