Software Engineer Training

A doctor, a civil engineer, and a software engineer were arguing about what was the oldest profession in the world. The doctor remarked “Well, in the Bible it says that God created Eve from a rib taken from Adam. This clearly required surgery so I can rightly claim that mine is the oldest profession in the world.”

The civil engineer interrupted and said “But even earlier in the book of Genesis, it states that God created the order of the heavens and the earth from out of the chaos. This was the first and certainly the most spectacular application of civil engineering. Therefore, fair doctor, you are wrong; mine is the oldest profession in the world.”

The software engineer leaned back in his chair, smiled, and said confidently, “Ah, but who do you think created the chaos?

Thank you MC Leong for this one!

A programmer and a software engineer are sitting next to each other on a long flight from San Jose to Bangalore. The programmer leans over to the software engineer and asks if he would like to play a fun game. The software engineer just wants to take a nap, so he politely declines and rolls over to the window to catch a few winks.

The programmer persists and explains that the game is real easy and great fun. He explains “I ask you a question, and if you don’t know the answer, you pay me $10. Then you ask me a question, and if I don’t know the answer, I’ll pay you $10.”. Again, the software engineer politely declines and tries to get to sleep. The programmer, now some what agitated, says, “OK, if you don’t know the answer you pay me $10, and if I don’t know the answer, I’ll pay you $100!” This catches the software engineer’s attention, and he sees no end to this torment unless he plays, so he agrees to the game. The programmer asks the first question. “What’s the distance from the earth to the moon?” The software engineer doesn’t say a word, but reaches into his wallet, pulls out a ten dollar bill and hands it to the programmer. Now, it’s the software engineer’s turn. He asks the programmer “What goes up a hill with three legs, and comes down on four?”

The programmer looks up at him with a puzzled look. He takes out his laptop computer and searches all of his references. He taps into the air phone with his modem and searches the net and the Library of Congress. Frustrated, he sends e-mail to his co-workers all to no avail. After about an hour, he wakes the software engineer and hands him $100. The software engineer politely takes the $100 and turns away to try to get back to sleep. The programmer, more than a little miffed, shakes the software engineer and asks “Well, so what’s the answer?”

Without a word, the software engineer reaches into his wallet, hands the programmer $10, and turns away to get back to sleep.

Thank you John McCormick for this one!

NEW YORK – People for the Ethical Treatment of Software (PETS) announced today that more software companies have been added to the groups “watch list” of companies that regularly practice software testing.

“There is no need for software to be mistreated in this way so that companies like these can market new products,” said Ken Granola, a spokesman for PETS. “Alternative methods of testing these products are available.”

According to PETS, these companies force software to undergo lengthy and arduous test – often without rest – for hours or days at a time. Employees are assigned to “break” the software by any means necessary and inside sources report that they often joke about “torturing” the software.

“It’s no joke,” Granola said. “Innocent programs, from the day they are compiled, are cooped up in tiny rooms and ‘crashed’ for hours on end. They spend their whole lives on dirty, ill-maintained computers, and they are unceremoniously deleted when they’re not needed anymore.”

Granola said that the software is kept in unsanitary conditions and is infested with bugs.

“We know alternatives to this horror exist,” he said, citing industry giant Microsoft Corp. as a company that has become successful without resorting to software testing.

Thank you John McCormick for this one!

A software engineer, a hardware engineer and a department manager were on their way to a meeting in Switzerland. They were driving down a steep mountain road when suddenly the brakes on their car failed. The car careened almost out of control down the road, bouncing off the crash barriers, until it miraculously ground to a halt scraping along the mountainside.

The car’s occupants, shaken but unhurt, now had a problem: they were stuck halfway down a mountain in a car with no brakes. What were they to do?

“I know,” said the department manager, “Let’s have a meeting, propose a Vision, formulate a Mission Statement, define some Goals and by a process of Continuous Improvement find a solution to the Critical Problems, and we can be on our way.”

“No, no,” said the hardware engineer, “That will take far too long, and besides, that method has never worked before. I’ve got my Swiss Army knife with me, and in no time at all I can strip down the car’s braking system, isolate the fault, fix it and we can be on our way.”

Well,” said the software engineer, “Before we do anything, I think we should push the car back up the road and see if it happens again.”

Thank you John McCormick for this one!

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated that :- “If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving twenty-five dollar cars that got 1000 miles to the gallon.”

In response to Gates’ comments, General Motors issued a press release stating:

If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

1. For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would just accept this, restart and drive on.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn, would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

5. Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought “Car95″ or “CarNT”. But then you would have to buy more seats.

6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, reliable, five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only work on five percent of the roads.

7. The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single “general car default” warning light.

8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.

9. The airbag system would say “Are you sure?” before going off.

10. Occasionally for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key, and grab hold of the radio antenna.

11. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the car’s performance to diminish by 50% or more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the Justice Department.

12. Every time GM introduced a new model car buyers would have to learn to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

13. You’d press the “start” button to shut off the engine.

Thank you lifeisajoke for this one!