cshaley/programming-jokes

A community-sourced list of software engineering and programming jokes

Programming jokes

A community-sourced list of software engineering and programming jokes - and some other, related topics.

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Programmers

• A programmer puts two glasses on his bedside table before going to sleep. A full one, in case he gets thirsty, and an empty one, in case he doesn’t.

• A programmer is heading out to the grocery store when his wife tells him "get a gallon of milk, and if they have eggs, get a dozen." He returns with 13 gallons of milk.

• A programmer his heading out to the grocery store when his wife tells him "get a gallon of milk, and while you're there, get some eggs too." He never came home.

• A manager, a mechanical engineer, an IT guy, and software analyst are driving back from convention through the mountains. Suddenly, as they crest a hill, the brakes on the car go out and they fly careening down the mountain. After scraping against numerous guardrails, they come to a stop in the ditch. Everyone gets out of the car to assess the damage.

  The manager says, "Let's form a group to collaborate ideas on how we can solve this issue."

  The mechanical engineer suggests, "We should disassemble the car and analyze each part for failure."

  The IT guy says, "First we should all try getting out of the car, shutting all the doors, then getting back in again."

  The software analyst says, "Let's push it back up the hill and see if it does it again."

• How many programmers does it take to screw in a light bulb? No can do. It's a hardware problem.

• A programmer is told to "go to hell". He finds the worst part of that statement is the "go to".

• Why do programmers confuse halloween and christmas? Because Oct 31 = Dec 25.

• Why don't programmers tell jokes in octal? Because 7 10 11!

• A biologist, a statistician, a mathematician and a computer scientist are on a photo-safari in Africa. They drive out into the savannah in their jeep, stop and scour the horizon with their binoculars.

  The biologist: "Look! There's a herd of zebras! And there, in the middle: a white zebra! It's fantastic! There are white zebras! We'll be famous!"

  The statistician: "It's not significant. We only know there's one white zebra"

  The mathematician: "Actually, we know there exists a zebra which is white on one side"

  The computer scientist: "Oh no! A special case!"

• A physician, a civil engineer, and a computer scientist were arguing about what was the oldest profession in the world. The physician remarked, "Well, in the Bible, it says that God created Eve from a rib taken out of Adam. This clearly required surgery, and so I can rightly claim that mine is the oldest profession in the world."

  The civil engineer interrupted, and said, "But even earlier in the book of Genesis, it states that God created the order of the heavens and the earth from out of the chaos. This was the first and certainly the most spectacular application of civil engineering. Therefore, fair doctor, you are wrong: mine is the oldest profession in the world."

  The computer scientist leaned back in her chair, smiled, and then said confidently, "Ah, but who do you think created the chaos?"

• Why do programmers take so long in the shower?

  They read the directions on the shampoo bottle and follow them to the letter:

  Lather, rinse, and repeat.

• "A novice was trying to fix a broken Lisp machine by turning the power off and on.

  Knight, seeing what the student was doing, spoke sternly: “You cannot fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding of what is going wrong.”

  Knight turned the machine off and on.

  The machine worked."

• What do you call a developer that doesn't comment code?

  A developer.

• At a recent computer software engineering management course, the participants were given an awkward question to answer:

  "If you had just boarded an airliner and discovered that your team of programmers had been responsible for the flight control software, how many of you would disembark immediately?"

  Among the ensuing forest of raised hands only one man sat motionless. When asked what he would do, he replied that he would be quite content to stay aboard. With his team's software, he said, the plane was unlikely to even taxi as far as the runway, let alone take off.

• The programmer quit his job because he didn't get arrays.

• A computer programmer crosses a road when a frog calls out to him, "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess."

  He bends over, picks up the frog and puts it in his pocket. The frog speaks up again and says, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will stay with you for one month."

  The computer programmer takes the frog out of his pocket, smiles at it and returns it to the pocket.

  The frog then cries out, "If you kiss me and turn me back, I'll do whatever you say!"

  Again the computer programmer takes the frog out, smiles at it and puts it back into his pocket.

  Finally, the frog asks, "What is the matter? I've told you I'm a beautiful princess, I'll stay with you for a month and do whatever you say. What more do you want?"

  The computer programmer says, "Look, I'm an computer programmer . I don't have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog, now that's cool!"

• Three programmers walk into a bar. The bartender asks them if they all would like a beer.

  I don't know, the first programmer replies.

  I don't know, chimes the second programmer.

  Yes, says the third programmer.

• What do you call it when a programmer throws up at IHOP?

  A stack overflow.

• If a programmer is up at 9 AM, it means he stayed up all night debugging his code.

• A doctor, a lawyer and an engineer are about to be put to death by guillotine. The doctor lays down, the executioner pulls the cord, and the blade sticks. The king decides that God has spared his life and so he lets him go free. The lawyer lays down, the executioner pulls the cord, and once again the blade sticks. The king sees this and releases him as well. The engineer lays down, looks up and says "I think I see your problem right here."

• How can you tell an introverted programmer from an extroverted programmer?

  The extroverted programmer stares at YOUR feet.

• What do you call that thing that slows the computer down.

  The user.

• Why are programmers the best dancers?

  We've got the best algo-rhythm.

• A QA engineer walks into a bar. Orders a beer. Orders 0 beers. Orders a lizard. Orders -1 beers. Orders a hiekjguseidf.

  First real customer walks in and asks where the bathroom is. The bar bursts into flames, killing everyone.

General Programming

• The two most annoying things in programming are off by one errors.

• The two hardest things in computer science are cache invalidation, naming things, and off by one errors.

• A group of computer science geeks were listening to a lecture about Java programming at a university.

  After the lecture, one of the men leaned over and reached into a woman’s purse.

  Woman: Hey! That’s private OK ?

  The man hesitated for a second looking confused.

  Man: But I thought we were in the same class.

• A guy walks into a bar and asks for 1.4 root beers. The bartender says "I'll have to charge you extra, that's a root beer float". The guy says "In that case, better make it a double."

• A man came into work, and one of his co-workers had a parrot on his shoulder. All though the morning, the bird would squawk and say, "pieces of nine, pieces of nine".

  Finally he could stand it no longer and went to the co-worker's cubicle. "Shouldn't it be 'pieces of eight'?", he asked.

  "Oh, that's a parroty error".

• Two programmers walk into a foo.

• Programming is like sex. Make one mistake and you end up supporting it for the rest of your life.

• • Hey, want to hear a joke? Parsing HTML with regex.

• Knock knock.

  Who's there?

  Broken state machine.

  Broken state machine, who?

  Knock knock.

• When is a door not a door? When it's a GenericStaticFurnitureBase.

• Why are modern programming languages so materialistic? Because they are object oriented.

• A computer programmer rushes his wife to the hospital where she gives birth to their child. The doctor first hands the baby to the programmer.

  "Well?" his wife says impatiently. "Is it a boy, or is it a girl?"

  Smiling, the programmer replies, "Yes."

• Why did the two functions stop calling each other?

  Because they had constant arguments.

• Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the universe is winning.

• There are two professions that refer to their customers as 'users.'

• What do you call a group of 8 hobbits? A hobbyte

• Walking on water and developing software from a specification are easy if both are frozen.

• What do you call Al Gore playing drums? Algorithm.

• Put Haskell on your resume even if you don't know it. When asked, say your resume is lazy and you'll learn it when results are needed.

• A byte walks into a bar looking miserable. The bartender asks him:

  "What's wrong buddy?" "Parity error." he replies. "Ah that makes sense, I thought you looked a bit off."

• What did the boolean say to the integer?

  "You can't handle the truth."

• God is real, unless declared integer.

• Ever heard of Bob Marlexp ?

  He sings Regexp

• How are mothers like a fuction with no parameters? They don't take arguments.

• "Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?"

• What is a pirate's favorite data structure?

  ARRays

  or

  binARRy search trees

• There's no place like 127.0.0.1

• A elder programmer kept a starving parrot in his office. One day a young developer asked why he didn't feed the parrot better.

  He replied, "To make sure all my algorithms run in Polly-No-Meal time."

• If you put a unix shell to your ear... do you hear the C?

Management

• A man flying in a hot air balloon suddenly realizes he’s lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts to get directions, "Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?"

  The man below says: "Yes. You're in a hot air balloon, hovering 30 feet above this field."

  "You must work in Information Technology," says the balloonist.

  "I do" replies the man. "How did you know?"

  "Well," says the balloonist, "everything you have told me is technically correct, but It's of no use to anyone."

  The man below replies, "You must work in management."

  "I do," replies the balloonist, "But how'd you know?"*

  "Well", says the man, "you don’t know where you are or where you’re going, but you expect me to be able to help. You’re in the same position you were before we met, but now it’s my fault."

• What did the Project Manager say to the Programmer?

  You start coding, I'll go find out what they want.

• A man walks into a pet shop and sees 3 monkeys, each in a cage, each with a computer. The man is curious and walks up to the clerk and asks - what is the story with the monkeys?

  "They are programming monkeys - for example this one here can complete 100 lines of C++ in an hour - only 100 dollars!"

  The first monkey was busy typing away, and sure enough it was flawless code. They moved onto the second monkey who was typing even faster.

  "This monkey knows Java, C++ and helped develop Julia - 1000 dollars for this one."

  "What about that last monkey in the biggest cage?" the man asked.

  "Well he is 10,000 dollars..."

  "That must be an amazing monkey! What does he do?"

  "Well, when he was brought in all he did was sit there while the other monkeys worked, so we figured he must be executive management."

• Best programming joke I know?

  Management schedules and expectations

Specific languages

• Java and C were telling jokes. It was C's turn, so he writes something on the wall, points to it and says "Do you get the reference?" But Java didn't.

• Why does C gets all the chicks while Java doesn't? Because C doesn't treat them like objects.

• Why do Java programmers wear glasses?

  Because they don't C#!

• A SQL statement walks into a bar and sees two tables. It approaches, and asks “may I join you?”

• Some people see a problem and think "I know, I'll use Java!". Now they have a ProblemFactory.

• Two C strings walk into a bar.

  The bartender asks "What can I get ya?"

  The first string says "I'll have a gin and tonic."

  The second string thinks for a minute, then says "I'll take a tequila sunriseJF()#$JF(#)$(@J#()$@#())!*FNIN!OBN134ufh1ui34hf9813f8h8384h981h3984h5F!##@"

  The first string apoligizes, "You'll have to excuse my friend, he's not null terminated."

• Why did the Lisp programmer get a new car? He ran out of storage space.

• Why do Haskell programmers avoid most medicines? Because they have side-effects.

• Why do the stories written by C programmers drag on forever? Because they can't write closures.

• Why did the Python programmer not respond to the foreign mails he got? Because his interpreter was busy collecting garbage.

• If you put a million monkeys at a million keyboards, one of them will eventually write a Java program.

  The rest of them will write Perl programs.

• C was trying to cheer Java up after his split with his girlfriend, but it was no use. Java never released memory.

• How many Prolog programmers does it take to change a light bulb?

  False

• What do you get if you lock a monkey in a room with a typewriter for 8 hours?

  A regular expression.

• Java is like Alzheimer's disease: it starts off slow, but eventually your memory is gone.

• Unfortunately, SAS programmers are very prone to semicolon cancer.

• A priest, a lama, and a BASIC programmer are out fishing in a boat. Suddenly a swell tears their boat off its anchor and they find themselves speeding towards a steep waterfall. The priest shows no sign of panic, and says "I'm going to go to heaven." The lama is likewise sedate, and says "I'm going to go to Nirvana." The BASIC programmer also shows no emotion, and says "I'm going to GOTO 10... I'm going to GOTO 10... I'm going to GOTO 10...."

• Why do snakes live on land?

  Because Python is above C level.

• Why do universities hate java programmers?

  They're always starting public classes.

Networking

• What's the best thing about UDP jokes? I don't care if you get them.

• What's the best thing about TCP jokes? I keep telling them until you get them.

• Would you like to hear a TCP joke?"

  "Sure."

  "Ok, I'll tell you a TCP joke."

• A UDP packet walks into a bar, no one acknowledges him.

• A machine dispensing UDP packets had a sign saying "Out Of Order".

• What kind of modem did Jimi Hendrix have?

  A Purple Hayes.

• In high society, TCP is more welcome than UDP. At least it knows a proper handshake.

Threading and Race conditions

• Some people, when confronted with a problem, think, 'I know, I'll use threads' - and then two they hav erpoblesm.

• Knock Knock

  Race condition.

  Who's there?

Bugs

• 99 little bugs in the code, 99 bugs in the code! Patch one down, compile it around, 117 bugs in the code!

• 1 little bug in the code, 1 little bug! Patch one down, compile it around, 0 bugs in the code! 0 little bugs in the code, 0 little bugs! patch one downSEGMENTATION FAULT

• 1 little bug in the code, 1 little bug! Patch one down, compile it around, 4294967295 bugs in the code!

Misc

• There are 10 kinds of people in this world: those who understand binary, and those who don't.
• There are 10 kinds of people in this world: those who understand binary, those who don't, and those who weren't expecting a base 3 joke.
• The way I see it, there are a billion types of people in the world: Those who understand little-endian storage, and those who don't.
• There are two types of people in this world, those who can extrapolate from incomplete data
• An SEO expert walks into a bar, pub, liquor store, brewery, alcohol, beer, whiskey, vodka...
• Why does no one like SQLrillex? He keeps dropping the database.
• If only Bill Gates had a dime for every time Windows crashed... Oh wait, he does.
• Did you hear about this year's Fibonacci Conference? It's going to be as big as the last two put together!
• How much memory does it take to store a dinosaur's DNA? A pterobyte!

Yo mama jokes (not Yo-Yo Ma jokes - he's a well-respected cellist)

• Yo mama's so FAT she can't save files bigger than 4GB.
• Yo mama's so public she violates encapsulation.
• Yo mama's so fat she can flatten a binary tree in constant time by sitting on it.
• Yo mama's so white trash her family tree is recursive.
• Yo mama's so fat, the recursive function computing her mass causes a stack overflow.
• Yo mama's like C. She's got no class.

Web development

• A web developer walks into a restaurant. He immediately leaves in disgust as the restaurant was laid out in tables.