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The Best of Verity Stob
Stob's writing is hard to categorize. It's both humor and satire, sometimes just overwhelmingly funny and sometimes barely causing a chuckle. It's British, so some things passed way over my head. Since she started her writing back in 1998, there are references to mainframes, Unisys systems and the days when you would call tech support and instantly get a human being on the other end. Nevertheless, the book is entertaining, although it's more of a coffee table book, where you can pick it up and start on any page, than book where you'd go chapter-by-chapter.
Her humor is original and versatile. Poems, stories, scripts, hacked diaries, parodies -- the book has them all: after all, it's a collection of the best of her writing. She's an experienced C++ programmer who had been in the Windows world for a while, so frequently the jokes relate to C++ peculiarities. Such as Thirteen ways to loathe VB (written in 2000):
Calling functions and accessing arrays. In most languages you can distinguish between a call to function F with parameter 3 an a reference to an array F with index 3, because one is written F(3) and the other F[3]. In Visual Basic they're both written F(3). Yes.
Her 2001 article for DDJ is actually nothing but a screenshot of a page called Dotdotdot with the subtitle Where nerds go on and on and on and... followed by a paragraph-long article titled Microsoft does something and a bunch of upset comments from the readers including a poster spelling out Look at me! in large letters in the first post.
Or her parody of George Orwell's 1984 which talks about Way After 1984 and describes Winston Smith's typical day:
As he entered the lobby, a breeze stirred the 60-foot banner suspended high above from the roof. The three oh-so-familiar slogans of the Ministry were printed across the banner in large letters: REGISTRATION NOT LEGISLATION MONOPOLISATION IS INNOVATION WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GO TODAY?
See another sample of her writing, which those who've had to go through code reviews will especially appreciate.
The book is organized chronologically, with Verity's early writings listed first, and some of the unpublished material included at the end of the book. Overall, it's a pretty good and entertaining read, although in many cases the chapters made me scratch my head trying to get to the point of the joke. It's especially difficult with parodies, since if you don't quite know what is being parodied, it's hard to get the joke. The Register has another review and those British journalists called it painfully funny.
You can purchase The Best of Verity Stob from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Only if they turn their head first.
That should be 1988. By 1998 things had already gone to hell, tech-support-wise.
Have you read my blog lately?
The crew is down in Australia... User Friendly
I used to read her column regularly when if was free on Dr. Dobbs, but then they started charging for it.
I have just ordered her book from Barnes & Noble. I heartily recommend it based on her columns.
Slashdot entertains. Windows pays the mortgage.
Slsahdot a source o geek humor? Well I guess not haha funny, but funny as in kicked in the balls funny.
I think that Futurama is a hell of a lot funnier if you are a geek than not. I cracked up when I saw "Bender's Computerized Dating Service: Discrete and Discreet", but everyone else thought nothing of it. There are several more examples like that; it is full of geek humour.
...is an absolute classic. So much so that Doctor Dobbs continues to get complaints about it from VB lovers who find it online.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
The reviewer quotes a passage where the author complains about array accesses and function invocations in VB. Now, as a former VB wonk, I hate it as much as anyone outside of the FSF, but I'm not sure I agree with this.
The author is showing either bias (real or feigned for humor value) or ignorance. Given the context (computer humor) and the medium-old-hand status of someone who has been writing it for (only) 17 years.
The original language (Fortran) used parens for both subscription and function arguments, as did most of the languages of the time.
If I recall correctly, there were no square brackets on the 026 keypunch keyboard (though there might have been an overstrike code assigned for them).
EBCDIC and ASCII had square brackets. But terminals and keypunches using them weren't widely deployed until the late '60s or early '70s.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
You're openly admitting that you've been in the industry for 18 years, and have never read Dr. Dobbs Journal? (Nor apparently have any clue as to what it is)
I can see that if you just entered the industry this millenium, but to be old school and not know about this publication is bordering on sacraligeous. One of the best technical programming journals there is.
No Comment.
Interestingly, the Slashdot parts were deemed of no value.
"crappy mainstreamed business journals"
Started in the mid 70's and originally called "Dr. Dobb's Journal of Computer Calisthenics and Orthodontia" subtitled "Running Light without OverByte" it's one of the best and longest running technical computer journals out there. Here's a link to help further your education.
http://webreview.com/ddj/history.htm
Don't miss her interview with a bulk emailer, from The Register.
Side-splitting stuff. If the book's half as good, it's a must-read.
D
You are an obvious troll but hey i will take the bait.
Before they invented High Level Languages , the testosterone filled chest thumpers designed just the algorithms. Most of the programming was done by, you know , girls. Because the men couldnt fathom Machine instructions.
And ummm,what price Admiral Grace Hooper and Lady Ada Lovelace?
Wanted : A Signature.
Is there a BASIC that doesn't work this way? I can't blame it on VB when CBM BASIC, GWBASIC, QuickBASIC, VAX/DEC/HP BASIC for VMS, and TI BASIC all do the same.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
You have to be an old geek to get some of the jokes, like the time Bender shines the X-ray flashlight as his head and you can see a giant chip in his brain labelled `6502'. That cracked me up.. but would be about meaningless to anyone under 25 (or maybe 30, these days).
I cracked up when I saw "Bender's Computerized Dating Service: Discrete and Discreet"
You weren't the only one.
Whoever says Futurama isn't geek humor isn't paying attention...
I also like the Star Trek parodies:
"Is there anything to eat on this planet?"
"Well, it's a class M planet, so it should at least have Roddenberrys."
Even if you hate Star Trek, you gotta admit it makes great parody material.
Quite right. Stick to the museli, natural yoghurt and hemp-fibre smocks.
Stick Men
Right here. My favourite. An all-time classic.
Stick Men
A chick can code? WOW! She must be THE BEST CODER IN THE WORLD THEN!
Aww, grow up, Junior. It's no secret that most coders are male, but the female coders I've worked with are every bit as good as their male counterparts, and in some cases better -- they have to be in order to be taken seriously by boneheads like you and not get burned out.
One that has really impressed me has a great knack for for identifying flaws during design and code reviews. She then defuses the inevitable heated defense from the male programmer with a calm, "Well, maybe you're right." A week later, the male programmer will suddenly discover a new approach that removes the flaw, and it's his idea. She never says, "I told you so," either. She does her best to get a solid final product without any grandstanding -- a real professional. If only the same could be said for the young males in the department.
http://bofh.ntk.net/Bastard.html/