[Coco] The Programmer's quick guide to the languages wasRe: OS9 Pascal

[Willard Goosey]

               The Programmer's Quick Guide to the Languages
               =============================================

The proliferation of modern programming languages (all of which seem to
have stolen countless features from one another) sometimes makes it
difficult to remember what language you're currently using. This handy
reference is offered as a public service to help programmers who find
themselves in such a dilemma.

                      TASK: Shoot yourself in the foot

   * C: You shoot yourself in the foot.

   * C++: You accidentally create a dozen instances of yourself and shoot
     them all in the foot. Providing emergency medical assistance is
     impossible since you can't tell which are bitwise copies and which are
     just pointing at others and saying, "That's me, over there."

   * FORTRAN: You shoot yourself in each toe, iteratively, until you run
     out of toes, then you read in the next foot and repeat. If you run out
     of bullets, you continue with the attempts to shoot yourself anyways
     because you have no exception-handling capability.

   * Pascal: The compiler won't let you shoot yourself in the foot.

   * Ada: After correctly packing your foot, you attempt to concurrently
     load the gun, pull the trigger, scream, and shoot yourself in the
     foot. When you try, however, you discover you can't because your foot
     is of the wrong type.

   * COBOL: Using a COLT 45 HANDGUN, AIM gun at LEG.FOOT, THEN place
     ARM.HAND.FINGER on HANDGUN.TRIGGER and SQUEEZE. THEN return HANDGUN to
     HOLSTER. CHECK whether shoelace needs to be re-tied.

   * LISP: You shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with
     which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with
     which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with
     which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with
     which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with
     which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds...

   * FORTH: Foot in yourself shoot.

   * Prolog: You tell your program that you want to be shot in the foot.
     The program figures out how to do it, but the syntax doesn't permit it
     to explain it to you.

   * BASIC: Shoot yourself in the foot with a water pistol. On large
     systems, continue until entire lower body is waterlogged.

   * Visual Basic: You'll really only _appear_ to have shot yourself in the
     foot, but you'll have had so much fun doing it that you won't care.

   * HyperTalk: Put the first bullet of gun into foot left of leg of you.
     Answer the result.

   * Motif: You spend days writing a UIL description of your foot, the
     bullet, its trajectory, and the intricate scrollwork on the ivory
     handles of the gun. When you finally get around to pulling the
     trigger, the gun jams.

   * APL: You shoot yourself in the foot, then spend all day figuring out
     how to do it in fewer characters.

   * SNOBOL: If you succeed, shoot yourself in the left foot. If you fail,
     shoot yourself in the right foot.

   * Unix:

     % ls
     foot.c foot.h foot.o toe.c toe.o
     % rm * .o
     rm:.o no such file or directory
     % ls
     %

   * Concurrent Euclid: You shoot yourself in somebody else's foot.

   * 370 JCL: You send your foot down to MIS and include a 400-page
     document explaining exactly how you want it to be shot. Three years
     later, your foot comes back deep-fried.

   * Paradox: Not only can you shoot yourself in the foot, your users can,
     too.

   * Access: You try to point the gun at your foot, but it shoots holes in
     all your Borland distribution diskettes instead.

   * Revelation: You're sure you're going to be able to shoot yourself in
     the foot, just as soon as you figure out what all these nifty little
     bullet-thingies are for.

   * Assembler: You try to shoot yourself in the foot, only to discover you
     must first invent the gun, the bullet, the trigger, and your foot.

   * Modula2: After realizing that you can't actually accomplish anything
     in this language, you shoot yourself in the head.