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Facial Hair and Computer Languages
An anonymous reader writes "Tamir Khason from Israel has blogged about the direct connection between the amount of facial hair and the success of computer languages. Very funny, and it's the truth."
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Save that beard, hippie. And take a bath.
As they used to say...
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I'm sure everyone's heard of the "Unix beard"?
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
It's The Eric Conspiricy All Over Again!
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
These are examples of what is known as the progammer's dress code:
first
second
I think Woz has the essence of it.
For the LOVE OF GOD, would someone PLEASE go grab James Gosling and SHAVE HIS BEARD!!!!
My blog
What about head hair? Mine's down to the middle of my back :-).
No beard though.
You've got the GPL, used by the majority of free software projects, and the guy who made it sports a fabulous GNU/Beard.
Someone should convince ZZ Top to make a new programming language called LEGS. [ducks]
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
My wife swears that bushy eyebrows are the true sign of intelligence, no matter what field you are in... wait a minute, my eyebrows aren't bushy!!
This reminds me of one of my third grade teachers. His class motto was "people with beards are great".
I can't help but think that he was on to something.
Actually, it also brings to mind a theme from Cryptonomicon, where programmers are referred to as Dwarves, "stout, taciturn, vaguely magical characters who spent a lot of time in the dark hammering out beautiful things." I don't think its a coincidence that beards go along with the territory.
"Si vis pacem para bellum" -Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus
"facial hair and the success of computer languages"
I presume the article that is not loading is about the corresponding relationship of programmer's facial hair and the language they work in - versus computer languages themselves actually having facial hair.
C++ (that must be nasty hair growing out of an ear. I had a Chemistry professor with that problem in college)
Whatever he's smoking, he needs to share.
That's a tad non-partisan for a /. editor isn't it? :P
Designing a well thought out language is pretty hairy business. Having something to scratch must help one think clearly.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
.. and he grew a beard... Wow...
... I'll have a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster with a side of Plutonium Nyborg
My boss is constantly creating bugs in our software. He has no beard. QED.
burrocrisy
and that would be what? Ruling by jackasses? Never has a slashdot misspelling been more apropos
As does his wearing slippers at work.
My compiler professor has a beard and he's developing a programming language.
Since I wear a goatee, I should write a computer language! I noticed that Thomas E. Kurtz's black and white picture in TFA (yes, I did. I must be new here) bears a striking resemblance to me at one point in my life, although his mustache is a lot thinker than mine ever was and his glasses are a lot nerdier than mine were. And I never EVER wore a suit and tie unless somebody got married or buried.
I don't understan the "However, today this light weigh [sic] language losing it's [sic] popularity (less then 2% of the industry). This why: [sic]" with a picture of a much heavier geezer still wearing a mustache but less nerdy glasses. I don't get the author's point, as the facial hair is the same in both pictures.
James Gosling, meanwhile, bears a striking resemblance to Dave Irvin, a local businessman who couldn't use a computer as a doorstop, let alone write a computer language..
What is the one thing all the folks in those pictures have in common?
THAY'RE ALL NERDS and look like they are! As such they all deserve our deepest respect and brotherhood.
"I am, and always will be, a pocket-protector wearing NERD!" - Niel Armstrong, first human to set foot on another world.
-mcgrew (If I ran the zoo I wouldn't be a nerd but I don't so I am)
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
More interesting: http://www.fool.com/investing/small-cap/2008/04/29/the-man-whos-shorting-buffett.aspx
can someone fill me in on what's going on since the summary isn't very descriptive?
Is it that people with beards are better at creating computer languages or are better at using them? If it's the latter, my supervisor is proof that this isn't the case, given his lack of beard and the fact that he's well versed in many computer languages.
what's that now?
Any discussion of facial hair and geekery is empty without mention of RMS.
... it appears we have taken down a Microsoft server with sheer volume. Robust web server, my ass.
If only it were one in Washington, rather than one in Europe.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Huh? the submitter is a sympathizer because he/she included the country of origin of the blogger? And why is an amusing article about facial hair and programming languages negative publicity?
You make no sense.
I knew a programmer with a beard, but that was because he didn't want his Mormon folks to find out.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
What the fuck are you talking about?
Of course! You need something to stroke as you sit back and ponder your next line of code.
I'm really a low 5-digit Slashdotter, but this ID is where I am now.
this article makes you wonder, where would GNU be without RMS's beard? http://www.stallman.org/image001.jpg Samson would have written one helluva programming language...
Son, never, ever, never, leave the door that wide open again. So many punchlines, not enough time during my lunch to post.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
This sounds suspiciously like an XKCD comic.
I said whoever edited/submitted the article didn't need to add the extra information that the blogger is from Israel. People like him/her just cause more hate understand?
So, if I come across a woman with a beard...
Hrrmmm... In my part of the world, less than five in one hundred professionals have beard.
It is just not socially accepted at work.
Among home geeks, yes. Then it is a lot higher. But in the business world, it is a no-no.
Here is the coral cache link.
Dr. Freeze, Static Man, and the lost lovechild of Henry Kane (that's the guy from Poltergeist II kids). Please, for the love of god, stop sticking your finger in the light socket.
The page in which this snippet links to seems to be experiencing the /. effect.
My family is full of Nutts, especially Uncle Dick.
It's a bald-faced lie...
Ada Lovelace had little facial hair. Although her software is not popular, the difference engine has a certain theoretical popularity.
Hello?
Bueller?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Doesn't it?
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
*Mentioning* Israel makes you a "sympathizer" (whatever that means)? While the author of the piece lives there? Shit man, I *live* in Israel and I wouldn't necessarily call me a sympathizer.
So "Danish scientists completed work on wave-generated electricity device" would mean the poster is a sympathizer of the Danish regime, and obviously wants to pitch that news to achieve world domination.
A rather amusing blog post about beards and programming languages turns into fodder for Al Jazeera... Pfff.... Square Snow Man, you seriously need to blow it out the other hole, because your brain isn't firing on all cylinders.
I hate shaving so it sounds like I might have a future in inventing programming languages. I better get to work while I'm young and can drink my fortunes away.
I'm almost 40 but I look like I'm 16. I can't even grow a decent goatee let alone a beard.
I guess I'll have to stick to writing other types of software.
I don't know about people in general, but there is a disproportionate number of hockey players who have beards. Clearly having a beard makes you a great hockey player.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
A beard is not the correct measuring stick for computer languages. It's the size and girth of the double chin that is. Self conscious folks grow the beards to cover up that double chin...being more self conscious has no bearing on the quality of the programming language, or else we'd all have much cleaner desks and enjoy wearing suits. Therefore, it is ALL about the double chin.
What about Cobol's creator?
Cobol was a popular language and is probably still hidden in the back end of a number of systems.
One of the key creators is Grace Hooper http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:dCsWd6Hg31MJ:blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/tamir/archive/2008/04/28/computer-languages-and-facial-hair-take-two.aspx+http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/tamir/archive/2008/04/28/computer-languages-and-facial-hair-take-two.aspx&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us works. less of a /. effect
GoatsE
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
COBOL's longevity.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
...but I can safely say that I have a Unix Brow.
Get yourself a better computer.
http://ozguru.mu.nu/Photos/2005-11-11--Dilbert_Unix.jpg
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Niklaus_Wirth%2C_UrGU.jpg
Full beard, no real success for Pascal. Or Modula-2, or Oberon.
The exception that proves the rule.
no taxation without representation!
So the ability to grow a beard in the first place is a prerequisite to success in creating a programming language? I'm sure Smalltalk co-creator Adele Goldberg, among others, would have something to say about that premise.
SIERRA TANGO FOXTROT UNIFORM
So let me get this straight. Here's a computer nerd who will learn 50 different languages to move a number from one memory location to another, but he can't learn English? It's = it is is beyond him? Fucken computer goobers. No wonder software is such a shambles.
As a non-american it seems that the american people like Israel more than Israel deserves. The region is a mess, and pretty much everyone involved is to blame for this, including Israel. Yet the U.S. (and only the U.S.) seems to think Israel is made of 100% pure and genuine win and will usually support Israel no matter what it does. This somewhat boggles the feeble minds of us foreigners.
I believe GP is under the impression that, had the blogger been from another country, his country would not have been mentioned (or less prominently). In a discussion about international politics this may have been an interesting observation, but given the subject at hand it seems somewhat off-topic.
College-Pages.com - Online Colleges, Degrees, and Programs
Objective C is still used heavily on OSX, so it's not completely gone. OSX may not have window's share of the market, but we wouldn't call a language that was used on linux and nothing else gone either ;)
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24
In cases where the programming and the computer were integral, the success of the machine also swings from the chin of the developer.
/."
When St. Woz developed the Apple II, he also developed Integer BASIC, which loaded from disk (and earlier, from tape). Woz was a veritable Neanderthal of a hacker. As the Apple gained popularity, the (by then) slick faced Steve Jobs became more involved in decisions about included features. Woz contributed Applesoft BASIC to the Apple II Plus, but Jobs oversaw its inclusion in the machine as a ROM-based system. The source of that on-board code, and to the long, slow decline of the Apple II family can be easily attributed to another well known shiny-jaw simply by reading the top surface of the ROMs: "Copyright 1983, Microsoft Corp."
This is hardly the first time this happened. Charles Babbage conceived his Analytical Engine as a general purpose machine, programmable within itself. But it was Lady Ada Lovelace who conceptualized the programming language necessary. The the bare faced hardware hacking Babbage lived to be 80, but the equally bare faced programming language developer Lady Lovelace died at age 36.
Ada's software influence overcame Babbage's hardware leanings, even more so than Jobs' and Gates' overcame Woz's. Apple eventually managed to release a 16 bit version of the Apple II family a few years before the unrepentant shavers Jobs and his hired gun John Scully killed it off, and that machine still carried the Microsoft copyright on its ROMs. But Babbage never managed to build a working Analytical Engine, and 130+ years after his death neither has anyone else.
One cannot help but wonder whether UNIVAC under Remington*-Rand was ill-fated due to the participation of the beardless (though undeniably genius) author of COBOL, and its derivatives ARITH-MATIC, MATH-MATIC and FLOW-MATIC, Admiral Grace Hopper. Evidence to support this can be found in examining the expulsion of the previously invincible IBM from the computer market, thanks to the baby-faced Gates and Microsoft's OS development, and the associated BIOS developments, that allowed for the rise of generic "IBM PC Compatible" computers at IBM's expense. Even the term has become disused in favor of "Windows Capable". The present brouhaha over "Vista Compatible" is excluded here, as it appear to be more an oxymoron than an assertion.
To paraphrase John Prine:
"Blow up your PC,
Throw away your Windows,
Move to Linux,
Build you a
(That's 'home' not 'Slashdot')
http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/john_prine/spanish_pipedream_blow_up_your_tv.html
That doesn't seem at first to have a lot to do with TFA, but it is what Weird Al Yankovic might write if he were a bit more computer oriented. He does, after all, have a moustache, and in "UHF" his hardware oriented chief engineer (and alien visitor) Philo had a beard. The movie itself wasn't a real success, but to the facially haired characters in the movie, U-62's success was what mattered. The appearance of success can be more important than the actual success, and can be jockeyed from the former to the latter, as the facially hairless Jobs and Gates can testify. Support from farther back in history will be forthcoming if the present attempt to build the Analytical Engine succeeeds, as did the 1991 successful build of Babbage's Difference Engine.
And THAT completes our moebius-strip history of computer technology and facial hair. This has been James' burp for LooseConnections.
* Conspiracy theorists take note: Was the failure of Remington-Rand UNIVAC a case of sabotage? After all, Remington electric shavers are responsible for decimating many a decent beard. Victor Kiam claimed "I liked the shaver so much, I bought the company." But did he buy it to shave his face, or to return the digitally beard-leaning company to its analog clean-shaven roots in Weapons of Personal Destruction, of not in fire arms, then at least in facial hair disfigurement? Inquiring chins want to know.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Borland was a giant once, and many programs that may have been recoded in C started with hacking in Turbo Pascal. It was not a long time and faded a while ago, but for overall punch Pascal made a memorable impact. It also influenced Karel the Robot, who apparently has no beard.
And for all I knew from a week ago, the PCI just couldn't be beat. Time for it to close up shop!
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/24/1955257
Young whippersnappers, you've probably never even heard of Turbo Pascal, the dominant development environment on PC's during the 1980's and early 90's. Not to mention the variants of UCSD pascal that were used to proiduce commercial software for other platforms (HP workstations, the Apple II, etc, etc.
Some of the best languages ever conceived came from that guy and his beard, lame article at best!
Arash Partow's Philosophy: Be a person who knows what they don't know, and not a person who doesn't know.
Great looking beards for all , well especially the C language crowd ! Still , playoffs time beards rule !
COBOL used to be very popular. Grace Hooper must have been very hair. I wonder where?
If enithin kan gow rong it whil. (Murfey)
Am I the only one struck by the complete chauvinism of an article about how beards make better languages? Yes, I get it, it's humor. But what we find funny can tell a lot about us.
If a politician made remarks like this about how beards correlated with being a good lawyer or passing good legislation, there would be an uproar like we haven't seen since a certain 'wardrobe malfunction'.
I hate to sound like "that guy", but it is almost offensive how slashdot can play the "why aren't more women in IT" game while also playing to the good 'ol boy crowd.
Yeah, why aren't there more women in IT? (wink wink, nudge nudge)...
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
I have long experienced wild inconsistency in the quality and quantity of my programs. In retrospect my periods of greatest productivity coincide with my times of shaggiest bearditude.
Now that I see this, I'm sure that the beard is what enabled me to possess the clarity of mind to produce my finest code.
Women are like electronics: you don't know how damaged they are until you try to turn them on.
at Japanese the beard grows well
Me lost me cookie at the disco.
Bill Joy, the actual inventor of the Internet and author of what is probably the oldest in-use code that's not on a mainframe, is clean-shaven.
I think it's worth pointing out that the most successful languages have been around since it was more acceptable for men to have beards, and that the author of at least one successful language (Ruby's Yukihiro Matsumoto) didn't grow a beard until after his language became successful. Also, several of the designers of Cobol were women, and I'm not sure whether that works for or against the hypothesis.
I've noticed when I'm working on a project that i'm really interested in i wake up first thing in the morning with an idea and i've got to get on my computer and hammer it out never going through the morning ritual of shaving and all that while i'm trying to wake up though the similarities would end if they take the time to even shower, are these people with beards as stinky as people sometimes tell me i am?
Is this why there are no women on the internets?
then the ultimate programmer would be one with hypertrichosis (aka werewolf syndrome). we should start hitting up the circus for the next greatest programmer!
i'm waiting for the inevitable extension of the "programming language inventor or serial murderer meme" with filesystems, now that Señor Reiser has been convicted and will be in both lists ;-)
He's wrong about FORTRAN as well as Pascal. Backus did not have facial hair, yet FORTRAN is alive and kicking, especially in the scientific community.
"Did you know that all linus users are long-hairs?"
"I dont really look like Bill Gates naturally but Im trying my best. I got the same hair cut as Bill Gateses hair cut and I kind of try to walk like he does and talk like he does but Im afraid Im just not very good at it no one would mistake me for him Im not as smart or as powerful but I sure wish Bill would be my personal buddy BILL IF YOUR READING THIS COME OVER AND WELL PLAY SOME SPACE CADET!"
http://geraldholmes.freeyellow.com/
lol
The emergence of the B.E.A.R.D. language will be the logical conclusion to this.
Beards Empower Advanced Research & Development
Now who's up for the BEARD Reference Implementation?