T'was the night before crisis,
And all through the house,
Not a program was working,
Not even a browse.
Programmers were wrung out,
Too mindless to care,
Knowing chances of cutover
Hadn't a prayer.
The users were nestled
All snug in their beds,
While visions of inquiries
Danced in their heads.
When out in the lobby
There arose such a clatter,
That I sprang from my tube
To see what was the matter.
And what to my wondering
Eyes should appear,
But a Super Programmer,
Oblivious to fear.
More rapid than eagles,
His programs they came
And he whistled and shouted
And called them by name.
On Update! On Add!
On Inquiry! On Delete!
On Batch Jobs! On Closing!
On Functions Complete!
His eyes were glazed over,
His fingers were lean,
From weekends and nights
Spent in front of a screen.
A wink of his eye,
And a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know
I had nothing to dread.
He spoke not a word,
But went straight to his work,
Turning specs into code,
Then he turned with a jerk.
And laying his fingers
Upon the ENTER key,
The system came up,
And worked perfectly!
The updates updated;
The deletes they deleted;
The inquiries inquired;
And the closing completed.
He tested each whistle,
He tested each bell,
With nary an abend,
And all had gone well.
The system was finished,
The tests were concluded,
The client's last changes
Were even included!
And the client exclaimed,
With a snarl and a taunt,
"It's just what I asked for,
But it's not what I want!"
I share this cute poem today because I am currently at a moment of crisis during this week before Christmas. You see, my trusty old laptop is at the end of its usable life. It is virtually out of hard disk space, out of memory space, and as a result, often completely out of touch with reality!
So, with much trepidation, shortly after this particular post, I will lay it down. The plan is to transfer its contents to a sleek, new, modern, high-powered machine through a process I do not understand and could not begin to explain, but is what amounts to transplanting a brain into a whole new body!
In any event, I appreciate your thoughts and prayers. Hopefully, here in about 48 hours, I will have a brand spanking new lightning fast machine, complete with a truckload of transferred material.
If so, I’ll be up and blogging again right away. If not, especially if any of my material is somehow lost in the transfer, I’m sure you will hear my wailing and gnashing of teeth far and wide!
Wish me luck!
POEM SOURCE: This and lots of other humorous computer jokes can be found at: http://www.ahajokes.com/com026.html.