Slashdot Mirror
What Monty Python Teaches Us About Computing
Esther Schindler writes "Does the computer industry seem just a little too strange? Never fear: Monty Python encapsulated several nuggets of wisdom years ago that summarize exactly what is behind the sometimes-tawdry behavior of vendors, the open source community, and marketing departments."
Who shit in your Cheerios this morning, pumpkin?
When my interview for a job involved Monty Python humour I should have known it was doomed...
It's fun to joke and reminisce great Monty Python skits and jokes, but when your supervisor's mind isn't on it should be a warning. The job lasted only two weeks - he was a complete flake, changing mind on specs and ideas almost daily and a 200% turnover before the upper management decided the problem wasn't the worker bees, but their manager. Some solace that was.
Still love MP, but work is work and when someone wants to just joke around be wary - your probably missing something important and the jokes may be a cover-up.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Who said anything about wanting to be normal?
If you RTFA you'd see that he applies commonly known Monty Python skits to real world situations when working on a Software Project.
This has nothing to do with "geek cred" or anything like that. It's just another way of looking at something that's been around for a while.
its a page with some python you tube clips on it.
No dude that's flash.
I made a MP reference! Now you HAVE to talk about my blog posting that,apart from some lame puns, is just lacking of anything worthwhile, new or insightful.
But the title made it go to /. so it has to be good? RIGHT?
a stretch. I'm sure TFA's author has run out of ideas. Next week he may compare computing to The Simpsons. Doh!
One that doesn't burn down, fall over, then fall into the swamp
However, a post containing both "Monty Python" and "Computing" very well may make the front page on ./.
0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
I consider humour to be an important part of management, negotiations, sales and everything that involves other people. Of course as everything it needs to be taken in healthy doses.
It brings people closer much faster and that is very important when you want to know more about the person in less time, therefore an excellent tool to use in interviews.
moi
I mean, really, what does all the Python referencing in the geek community prove
I think a big part of the appeal of Python in the 'geek' community is that the writing (at least in the well-known sketches) is just plain 'clever.' They don't dumb it down - They just assume the audience gets it, and move on. There hasn't really been anything like it, since then.
From a centurion correcting Brian's bad Latin grammar, to songs about philosophers, to word plays - "The palindrome of bolton would be notlob!"
Humor in a leadership position can be very powerful, but inappropriately applied it can be devastating. Like you said, its knowing when to apply it and when not to that makes all the difference.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
As much as I like Monty Python, their body of work is large enough that you can find support for any idea, ideology, hypothesis, etc. buried therein. It is like the people who comb the Bible for its prediction of 9/11 events.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
When my interview for a job involved Monty Python humour I should have known it was doomed...
Didn't like the boss singing the lumberjack song, eh?
Have gnu, will travel.
Who shit in your Cheerios this morning, pumpkin?
I don't know, but I want that job when the guy who does it quits.
John
'Our weapons are Surprise, Fear, and an almost fanatical dedication to Guido van Rossum!'
Discussions about our IT budget is like listening to the four Yorkshiremen.
'We yoosed to 'ave a server that was a shoebox in middle o' road'
"Cardboard box?"
"Aye"
"Yoo were looky! We ran a file server for three moonths on a paper bag in a septic tank"
Ho! Haha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!
Why would I want to be normal? That's boring, and no one remembers you after you're gone. I much prefer being referred to as, "Hey, remember that guy who married the hot Peruvian girl, had those ugly hairless dogs, and learned to paraglide when he was 50?" rather than, "Remember, that guy who, umm, never mind." Normalcy is highly overrated.
I don't particularly care how I'm referred to, but it is nice to know it's in the present tense.
Just never go out of style....like Blazing Saddles...the uncut version, not what they show on tv ;)
Cleese appeared in a number of corporate training as well as advertising films. Hey, if you've got to watch something to check off the obligatory quarterly training box, it may as well be something funny.
Have gnu, will travel.
by value.
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
When forming a palindromic sentence, spacing and punctuation are normally ignored: A man, a plan, a canal, Panama!
So, if the Bolton police were to accuse me of tossing pitch towards their town, I might ask a witness, "I did not lob tar at Bolton, did I?"
The lesson about Symbian and Nokia is one that one could have learned about UNIX when MS brought NT. And it would be true enough but UNIX sort of didn't die like it was told to exactly but spawned a bastard child which grew up to be stronger.
Life is full of near misses and one doen't know how near they are until you have strained every nerve trying. Even then you never know what could have happened if you had been just a little bit luckier or smarter or, indeed, slower or dumber.
There is so much w*****g about the Symbian UI but it's a good OS and does a lot of stuff that, e.g., Windows Phone cannot do now but makes up for with much more expensive hardware. What's crapulent is the organisation which wants everything (masses of models at different price points with exceedingly complex features in the OS to try and get around the deficiencies in the hardware, backwards compatibility with all the mistakes of the past etc) and ends up with nothing.
If you haven't learned that it's the people that matter most then you are missing the point.
This is all just my personal opinion.