Mr. Meinzen

"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." Winston Churchill

Humor in Computer Science

  1. A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages:

    Computer Science & Education Quotes compiled by Richard Pattis at Carnegie Mellon University

  2. Automatic Language Translators : the following English was translated to Russian then translated back to English by computer translaters (apocryphal):

    • "The Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" becomes "The vodka is strong but the meat is rotten"

  3. Quotes from the AP Computer Science Reading (grading of 25000+ AP exams during the summer)

    • In the classroom:

      • I have students who can talk without thinking.

      • This student has boolean conditional dyslexia.

      • These students have found a new song entitled '50 ways to lose your limit'

      • Typing is no substitute for thinking [attributed to Richard Hamming]

      • Without Geometry, life would be pointless.

    • In the grading room:

      • Can we use the magnifying glass to burn the tests?

      • Can 'ternary operator' be considered a swear word so we can throw the test out?

      • Do I have to confirm with the table leader before ****** the test?

      • My dreams are dashed if I get less than 25 tests in a folder. [ed. note: all 25000+ exams come in folders of 25 tests]

    • Dealing with argumentative colleagues:

      • "Why don't you just AUTOBOX THIS!"

    • Types of Programming Students who take the AP CS exam

      • Student Levels

        • newbies who throw code vomit

        • code snots who spew continuous meaningless code

        • script kiddies whose code runs on and on and on and....

      • Advanced Levels

        • outsourceable programmer who can create working code but can't comment properly

        • code snob who refuses to comment their code

        • marathon coder who never leaves the computer lab for more than a few minutes and doesn't have the time to speak to other humans.

        • demigod who solves and codes the program faster than the computer can run the program...doesn't bother to speak to any other human--even another programmer--unless their can speak in code (i.e. another demigod).