Best Programming Jokes

Who says that programmers do not have a sense of humor? Some of the best programming books are actually concise exercises in humor. I have always advocated that good code is short. Refactoring code is always about getting rid of stuff. In the process, you have to just laugh at it all. Some of these are not even jokes, but insights into good programming really.

Here is my list of best programming jokes…

When debugging, novices insert corrective code; experts remove defective code. ~Richard Pattis

Controlling complexity is the essence of computer programming. ~Brian Kernighan

Reusing pieces of code is like picking off sentences from other people’s stories and trying to make a magazine article. ~Bob Frankston

What I mean is that if you really want to understand something, the best way is to try and explain it to someone else. That forces you to sort it out in your own mind. And the more slow and dim-witted your pupil, the more you have to break things down into more and more simple ideas. And that’s really the essence of programming. By the time you’ve sorted out a complicated idea into little steps that even a stupid machine can deal with, you’ve certainly learned something about it yourself. ~Douglas Adams

Everyone knows that debugging is twice as hard as writing a program in the first place. So if you are as clever as you can be when you write it, how will you ever debug it? ~Brian Kernighan

Programming is like sex. One mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life. ~Michael Sinz

A good programmer is someone who always looks both ways before crossing a one-way street. ~Doug Linder

Beta. Software undergoes beta testing shortly before it’s released. Beta is Latin for “still doesn’t work.” ~Author Unknown

Good code is its own best documentation. As you’re about to add a comment, ask yourself, “How can I improve the code so that this comment isn’t needed?” ~Steve McConnell

One man’s crappy software is another man’s full time job. ~Jessica Gaston